It was not uncommon for princesses, when a future marriage had been agreed, to be brought up in their intended husband's family; this, indeed, is why Agnes probably never met her elder sister Alys, who lived in the Kingdom of England from the age of about nine, when her marriage to the future Richard I of England was agreed on (though this marriage never took place). Agnes took ship in Montpellier, bound for Constantinople, at Easter 1179, at Genoa the flotilla increased from 5 to 19 ships, captained by Baldovino Guercio.[3]

On arrival in Constantinople in late summer 1179 Agnes was met by seventy high-ranking ladies[4] and lavish festivities were organized for her, she was greeted with an oration from Eustathios, former Master of the Rhetors and archbishop of Thessalonica.[5] She was perhaps now presented with an elaborate volume of welcoming verses by an anonymous author, sometimes called the Eisiterion.

According to William of Tyre, Agnes was eight on her arrival at Constantinople, while Alexios was thirteen. William got Alexios' age wrong (he was born on 14 September 1169)[6] and there is no other source for Agnes' year of birth. If she was in fact eight, she was at least three years too young for marriage, according to most 12th-century views.[7] However, William of Tyre, who was present at the ceremony, seems to describe it as a full wedding (matrimonii legibus ... copulare); in this he is followed by some other non-Byzantine sources and by many modern authors.[8]

The ceremony took place in the Trullo Hall, in the Great Palace, on 2 March 1180. Agnes was officially renamed Anna. Eustathios of Thessalonica produced a speech to celebrate the occasion, whose title in the manuscript is Oration on the Public Celebrations of the Betrothal of the Two Royal Children.[9] This ceremony came approximately one month after the wedding of Alexios' half-sister Maria Porphyrogenita to Renier of Montferrat, conducted by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Theodosios.

On September 24, 1180, Manuel died and Alexios succeeded him as Emperor, he was too young to rule unaided; his mother, Maria of Antioch, exercised more influence in affairs of state than Alexios or Anna.

In 1183 Maria of Antioch was displaced by a new power behind the throne, Andronikos I Komnenos. Andronikos was a first cousin of Manuel and was known to have harbored imperial ambitions for himself, he is believed to have arranged the deaths by poisoning of Maria Porphyrogenita and her husband Renier; he certainly imprisoned, and soon afterwards executed, Maria of Antioch.[10] Andronikos was crowned co-ruler with Alexios; then, in October of the same year, he had Alexios strangled. Anna was now 12, and the approximately 65-year-old Andronikos married her.

Andronikos had previously been married (his first wife's name is unknown), he had had sexual relationships with two nieces (Eudokia Komnene and Theodora Komnene) and with Philippa of Antioch. Philippa was a daughter of Constance of Antioch and her first husband and consort Raymond of Poitiers; she was also a sister of Maria of Antioch and thus maternal aunt of Alexios. Andronikos had two sons by his first wife; he also had a young son and daughter from his affair with Theodora. His eldest son, Manuel already had a son of his own, the future Alexios I of Trebizond.

Anna was Empress consort for two years, until the deposition of Andronikos in September 1185; in an attempt to escape the popular uprising that ended his rule, Andronikos fled from Constantinople with Anna and his mistress (known only as Maraptike). They reached Chele, a fortress on the Bithynian coast of the Black Sea, where they tried to take ship for the Crimea, their ship was prevented from sailing by contrary winds. Andronikos was eventually captured and returned to the capital,[11] where he was tortured and killed on September 12, 1185.

Anna survived Andronikos' fall and is next heard of in 1193, when she is said by a Western chronicler to have become the lover of Theodore Branas,[12] a military leader who fought on the Empire's northern frontier, they did not at first marry.

After the fall of Constantinople in 1204, Agnes derived respect from the Latin barons due to her being a former empress. According to Robert of Clari, Agnes had a bad reputation and could only talk through a translator because she did not know French, at that time she was 30 years old and had spent most of her life in the Byzantine court.

Anna and Theodore eventually married, at the urging of the Latin emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople, in summer 1204.[13] Theodore Branas continued to fight for the Latin Empire, and is last heard of in 1219, by which time Agnes has already disappeared from the historical record, they had at least one daughter, who married Narjot de Toucy.[14]

Her date of death is sometimes given in modern genealogies as "1220" or "after 1240". No primary source for these dates has been identified.[15]

The crusader Robert of Clari, writing only 25 years after the event, is clear about the rich entourage that accompanied Agnes to Constantinople:

then the king arrayed his sister very richly and sent her with the messengers to Constantinople, and many of his people with her ... When they were come, the emperor did very great honor to the damsel and made great rejoicing over her and her people ...

However, in that account the embassy is attributed to Agnes' brother, Philip II of France, though Philip did not succeed to the French throne until 18 September 1180.

Agnes is the subject of the historical novel Agnes of France (1980) by Greek writer Kostas Kyriazis (b. 1920). The novel describes the events of the reigns of Manuel, Alexios and Andronikos through her eyes, she is also part of the cast of the sequelsFourth Crusade (1981) and Henry of Hainaut (1984). All three have been in print in Greece since their first edition.

Anne of France
–
Anne of France was a French princess and regent, the eldest daughter of Louis XI by Charlotte of Savoy. Anne was the sister of Charles VIII, for whom she acted as regent during his minority, during the regency she was one of the most powerful women of late fifteenth-century Europe and was referred to as Madame la Grande. Anne was born at the Chatea

1.
Portrait of Anne of France, from a triptych by Master of Moulins

2.
Depiction of Anne and St. John the Evangelist

3.
Triptych which depicts St. Anne presenting Anne and her daughter Suzanne

Alexios II Komnenos
–
Alexios II Komnenos or Alexius II Comnenus was Byzantine emperor from 1180 to 1183. He was the son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and Maria, daughter of Raymond of Poitiers and he was the long-awaited male heir and was named Alexius as a fulfilment of the AIMA prophecy. On Manuels death in 1180, Maria, who became a nun under the name Xene and she exc

Andronikos I Komnenos
–
Andronikos I Komnenos, usually Latinized as Andronicus I Comnenus, was Byzantine Emperor from 1183 to 1185. He was the son of Isaac Komnenos and the grandson of the emperor Alexios I, Andronikos Komnenos was born around 1118. He was handsome and eloquent, active, hardy, courageous, a general and an able politician. His early years were spent altern

Dynasty
–
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, us

House of Capet
–
The House of Capet or the Direct Capetians, also called the House of France, or simply the Capets, ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328. It was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians, historians in the 19th century came to apply the name Capetian to both the ruling house of France and

1.
Arms of the King of France

Louis VII of France
–
Louis VII was King of the Franks from 1137 until his death. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI of France, hence his nickname, immediately after the annulment of her marriage, Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, to whom she conveyed Aquitaine. When Henry became King of England in 1154, as Henry II, Henr

Philip, Count of Flanders
–
Philip of Alsace was count of Flanders from 1168 to 1191. He succeeded his father Thierry of Alsace and his reign began in 1157, while he acted as regent and co-count for his father, Thierry, who was frequently away on crusade. He defeated Floris III, Count of Holland and stopped the piracy, Floris was captured in Bruges and remained in prison unti

1.
Philip I

Constantinople
–
Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The firs

1.
Constantinople in the Byzantine era

2.
Map of Byzantine Constantinople

3.
Emperor Constantine I presents a representation of the city of Constantinople as tribute to an enthroned Mary and Christ Child in this church mosaic. Hagia Sophia, c. 1000

4.
Coin struck by Constantine I to commemorate the founding of Constantinople

Holy Land
–
The Holy Land is an area roughly located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that also includes the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River. Traditionally, it is synonymous with both the biblical Land of Israel and historical Palestine, the term usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestini

1.
A 1759 map entitled The Holy Land, or Palestine, showing not only the Ancient Kingdoms of Judah and Israel in which the 12 Tribes have been distinguished, but also their placement in different periods as indicated in the Holy Scriptures by Tobias Conrad Lotter, Geographer. Augsburg, Germany

2.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Christianity, as it is the purported site of Christ's resurrection.

3.
Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem

Eastern Roman Emperor
–
This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Emperors listed below up to Theodosius I in 395 were sole or joint rulers of the entire Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire was the direct legal contin

Manuel I Komnenos
–
Manuel I Komnenos was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. His reign saw the last flowering of the Komnenian restoration, during which the Byzantine Empire had seen a resurgence of its military and economic power, and had enjoyed a cultural revival. Eager

Second Crusade
–
The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe as a Catholic holy war against Islam. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year to the forces of Zengi, the county had been founded during the First Crusade by King Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098. While it was the first Crusader

1.
Edessa, seen here on the right of this map (c. 1140), was recaptured by the Turks. This was the primary cause of the Second Crusade.

Western Europe
–
Western Europe, or West Europe, is the region comprising the western part of Europe. Below, some different geographic and geopolitical definitions of the term are outlined, prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. This cultural and linguistic division was reinforced by the later po

Heir apparent
–
An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. An heir presumptive, by contrast, is someone who is first in line to inherit a title, today these terms most commonly describe heirs to hereditary titles, particularly monarchies. They are also

Maria of Antioch
–
Maria of Antioch was a Byzantine empress as the wife of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. She was the daughter of Constance of Antioch and her first husband Raymond of Poitiers and her only son was Alexios II Komnenos, who succeeded Manuel in 1180, and died three years afterwards at the age of 14. She acted as regent of the Byzantine Empire

1.
Manuscript miniature of Maria of Antioch (Vatican Library)

Pope Alexander III
–
Pope Alexander III, born Roland of Siena, was Pope from 7 September 1159 to his death in 1181. He also laid the stone for the Notre-Dame de Paris. Pope Alexander III was born in Siena, from 14th century he is referred to as a member of the aristocratic family of Bandinelli, although this has not been proven. Noonan and Rudolf Weigand have shown thi

Kingdom of England
–
In the early 11th century the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, united by Æthelstan, became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway. The completion of the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1284 put Wales under the control of the English crown, from the accession of James I in 1603, the Stuart dynasty

3.
King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, surrounded by his baronage. Illustration from Cassell's History of England, 1902.

4.
Fifteenth-century miniature depicting the English victory over France at the Battle of Agincourt.

Richard I of England
–
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes and he was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was known as Richard Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of

4.
A silver denier of Richard, struck in his capacity as the Count of Poitiers

Montpellier
–
Montpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Hérault department, Montpellier is the 8th largest city of France, and is also the fastest growing city in the country over the past 25 years. Nearly one third of the population are students from three universities and from three higher education institutions that are outside the un

Genoa
–
Genoa is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015,594,733 people lived within the administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba due to i

Eustathius of Thessalonica
–
Eustathius of Thessalonica was a Greek scholar and Archbishop of Thessalonica. He was officially canonized on June 10,1988, and his feast day is on September 20, a pupil of Nicholas Kataphloron, Eustathius was appointed to the offices of superintendent of petitions, professor of rhetoric, and was ordained a deacon in Constantinople. He was ordained

Thessaloniki
–
Its nickname is η Συμπρωτεύουσα, literally the co-capital, a reference to its historical status as the Συμβασιλεύουσα or co-reigning city of the Eastern Roman Empire, alongside Constantinople. The city is renowned for its festivals, events and vibrant cultural life in general, Thessaloniki was the 2014 European Youth Capital. The city of Thessaloni

William of Tyre
–
William of Tyre was a medieval prelate and chronicler. As archbishop of Tyre, he is known as William II to distinguish him from a predecessor. Following Williams return to Jerusalem in 1165, King Amalric made him an ambassador to the Byzantine Empire, William became tutor to the kings son, the future King Baldwin IV, whom William discovered to be a

Great Palace of Constantinople
–
It served as the main royal residence of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine emperors from 330 to 1081 and was the center of imperial administration for over 690 years. Only a few remnants and fragments of its foundations have survived into the present day, when Constantine I moved the Roman capital to Constantinople in 330, he planned out a palace for

1.
A scene from the scroll border of the Great Palace Mosaic, a mosaic floor of scenes from daily life and mythology in a hall of yet unidentified uses and controversial date.

Patriarch of Constantinople
–
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history. The ecumenical patriarchs in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity, in the Middle Ages they played a major role in the affairs of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as in the politics of t

3.
Emblem found atop the front entrance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

4.
Throne room inside the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Gospel is enthroned on the dais; the Patriarch sits on the lower throne in front.

Constance of Antioch
–
Constance of Hauteville was the ruling Princess of Antioch from 1130 to 1163. She was the child of Bohemond II of Antioch by his wife. Constance succeeded her father, who fell in battle, at the age of two, although his cousin, Roger II of Sicily, laid claim to Antioch and her mother assumed the regency, but the Antiochene noblemen replaced her with

1.
The Crusader States during the early years of Constance's life.

Raymond of Antioch
–
Raymond of Poitiers was Prince of Antioch from 1136 to 1149. Following the death of Prince Bohemund II of Antioch in 1130, the principality came under the regency first of King Baldwin II, then King Fulk, the reigning princess was Bohemond IIs daughter, Constance. Against the wishes of Alice, a marriage was arranged for Constance with Raymond, at t

Empire of Trebizond
–
The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was a monarchy that flourished during the 13th through 15th centuries, consisting of the far northeastern corner of Anatolia and the southern Crimea. The Emperors of Trebizond pressed their claim on the Imperial throne for decades after the Nicaean reconquest of Constantinople in 1261, the Trapezun

Bithynia
–
Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Paphlagonia to the northeast along the Pontic coast, Bithynia was an independent kingdom from the 4th century BC. Its capital Nicomedia was rebuilt on the s

Black Sea
–
The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and

Crimean Peninsula
–
The peninsula is located south of the Ukrainian region of Kherson and west of the Russian region of Kuban. It is connected to Kherson Oblast by the Isthmus of Perekop and is separated from Kuban by the Strait of Kerch, the Arabat Spit is located to the northeast, a narrow strip of land that separates a system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of

Baldwin I of Constantinople
–
He lost his final battle to Kaloyan, the emperor of Bulgaria, and spent his last days as his prisoner. Baldwin was the son of Baldwin V of Hainaut and Margaret I, when the childless Philip of Alsace left on the last of his personal crusades in 1177, he designated his brother-in-law Baldwin V his heir. One year later, Philip of Alsace had his protég

1.
Seal of Baldwin I

2.
County of Flanders, AR maille or 'petit denier', struck in Ypres under Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders

Latin Empire
–
It was established after the capture of Constantinople in 1204 and lasted until 1261. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, was crowned the first Latin emperor as Baldwin I on 16 May 1204, the last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, went into exile, but the imperial title survived, with several pretenders to it, until the 14th century. The original name of state

2.
The Latin Empire with its vassals (in yellow) and the Greek successor states of the Byzantine Empire (in red) after the Treaty of Nymphaeum in 1214. The borders are very uncertain.

Philip II of France
–
Philip II, known as Philip Augustus, was King of France from 1180 to 1223, a member of the House of Capet. Philips predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philip became the first French monarch to style himself king of France. The son of King Louis VII and his wife, Adèle of Champagne, he was originally nicknamed D

1.
Seal of Philip II

2.
Isabelle, Philip's first wife.

3.
The coronation of Philip II Augustus in the presence of Henry II of England

4.
Remains of the Wall of Philip II Augustus built around Paris before he went to the Crusades. The segment pictured here is found in the Rue des Jardins-Saint-Paul, Paris

Greece
–
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan pe

Fourth Crusade
–
The Fourth Crusade was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, a sequence of events culminated in the Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the intention of the crusaders was then to continue to the Holy Land w

1.
Conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204

2.
The Crusader attack on Constantinople, from a Venetian manuscript of Geoffreoy de Villehardouin's history, ca. 1330

3.
Capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204

4.
The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (Eugène Delacroix, 1840). The most infamous action of the Fourth Crusade was the sack of the Orthodox Christian city of Constantinople

Henry of Flanders
–
Henry was the second emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. He was a son of Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut. Having joined the Fourth Crusade in about 1201, he distinguished himself at the sieges of Constantinople and he soon became prominent among the princes of the new Latin Empire. He was crowned 20 August 1206, upon Henrys ascension as Lati

Henry I of France
–
Henry I was King of the Franks from 1031 to his death. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign and this is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy. A member of the House of Cap

1.
A depiction of Henry from Chroniques de France ou de St Denis

Philip I of France
–
Philip I, called the Amorous, was King of the Franks from 1060 to his death. His reign, like that of most of the early Capetians, was long for the time. The monarchy began a modest recovery from the low it reached in the reign of his father and he added to the royal demesne the Vexin, Philip was born 23 May 1052 at Champagne-et-Fontaine, the son of

Anne of Kiev
–
Anne of Kiev, Anna Yaroslavna, Anna of Rus also called Agnes, was the queen consort of Henry I of France, and regent of France during the minority of her son, Philip I of France, from 1060 until 1065. Anne founded St. Vincent Abbey in Senlis, Anne was born between 1024 and 1032. Her parents were Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev and Novgorod,

Louis VI of France
–
Louis VI, called the Fat, was King of the Franks from 1108 until his death. Chronicles called him roi de Saint-Denis, nonetheless, Louis VI managed to reinforce his power considerably and became one of the first strong kings of France since the division of the Carolingian Empire in 843. Louis was a king but by his forties his weight had become so g

Floris I, Count of Holland
–
Floris I of Holland was Count of Holland, then called Frisia west of the Vlie, from 1049 to 1061. He was a son of Dirk III and Othelindis and he succeeded his brother Dirk IV, Count of Holland, who was murdered in 1049. He was involved in a war of a few Lotharingian vassals against the imperial authority, on a retreat from Zaltbommel he was ambushe

1.
Floris I as imagined in the 16th century

Bertha of Holland
–
Bertha of Holland, also known as Berthe or Bertha of Frisia and erroneously as Berta or Bertrada, was queen consort of the Franks from 1072 until 1092, as the first wife of King Philip I. Berthas marriage to the king in 1072 was a result of negotiations between him and her stepfather, Count Robert the Frisian of Flanders. After nine years of childl

Gertrude of Saxony
–
Gertrude of Saxony, also known as Gertrude Billung, was a countess consort of Holland, and a countess consort of Flanders by marriage. She was regent of Holland during the minority of her son and she was the daughter of Bernard II, Duke of Saxony and Eilika of Schweinfurt. She married Floris I, Count of Holland c,1050, and upon his death, her son D

1.
Gertrude of Saxony

Adelaide of Maurienne
–
Adelaide of Savoy was the second spouse but first Queen consort of Louis VI of France. Adelaide was the daughter of Humbert II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy, and niece of Pope Callixtus II and she became the second wife of Louis VI of France, whom she married on 3 August 1113/14 in Paris, France. They had eight children, the second of whom became

1.
Adelaide of Maurienne

William I, Count of Burgundy
–
William I, called the Great, was Count of Burgundy from 1057 to 1087 and Mâcon from 1078 to 1087. He was a son of Renaud I and Alice of Normandy, daughter of Richard II, william was the father of several notable children, including Pope Callixtus II. In 1057, he succeeded his father and reigned over a larger than that of the Franche-Comté itself. I

Stephen II, Count of Blois
–
Stephen II Henry, Count of Blois and Count of Chartres, was the son of Theobald III, count of Blois, and Garsinde du Maine. He is numbered Stephen II after Stephen I, Count of Troyes, in 1089, upon the death of his father, he became the Count of Blois and Chartres, although Theobald had given him the administration of those holdings in 1074. He was

1.
Seal of Stephen II

Theobald II, Count of Champagne
–
Theobald the Great was Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV from 1102 and was Count of Champagne and of Brie as Theobald II from 1125. He held Auxerre, Maligny, Ervy, Troyes, and Châteauvillain as fiefs from Odo II and he was the son of Stephen II, Count of Blois, and Adela of Normandy, and the elder brother of King Stephen of England. Alt

1.
Theobald II, Count of Champagne

William the Conqueror
–
William I, usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward, after a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conq

4.
Image from the Bayeux Tapestry showing William with his half-brothers. William is in the centre, Odo is on the left with empty hands, and Robert is on the right with a sword in his hand.

Adela of Normandy
–
Adela of Normandy, of Blois, or of England, also known as Saint Adela in Roman Catholicism, was, by marriage, Countess of Blois, Chartres, and Meaux. She was a daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders and she was also the mother of Stephen, King of England and Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester. Her birthdate is generally believe

1.
Anne of France
–
Anne of France was a French princess and regent, the eldest daughter of Louis XI by Charlotte of Savoy. Anne was the sister of Charles VIII, for whom she acted as regent during his minority, during the regency she was one of the most powerful women of late fifteenth-century Europe and was referred to as Madame la Grande. Anne was born at the Chateau of Genappe in Brabant on 3 April 1461 and her brother, Charles would later succeed their father as Charles VIII of France. Her younger sister Joan became for a period, a queen consort of France as the first wife of Louis XII. Anne was originally betrothed to Nicholas, Duke of Lorraine and was created Viscountess of Thouars in 1468 in anticipation of the marriage. However, Nicholas broke the engagement to pursue Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, Anne was just twelve years old at the time. During the minority of Annes brother, Charles VIII of France, Peter, as regent of France, Anne was one of the most powerful women in the late fifteenth century, and she was referred to as Madame la Grande. Annes regency overcame many difficulties, including unrest amongst the magnates who had suffered under Louis XIs oppressions. Concessions, many of which sacrificed Louiss favourites, were made, Louis tried to obtain the regency, but the Estates General sided with her. She gave her support to Henry Tudor against his rival, King Richard III of England, when he sought her aid to oust Richard, who was deemed by many to have been a usurper. Anne supplied him with French troops for the 1485 invasion which culminated at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August, when Charles ended the regency in 1491, both Anne and Peter fell victim to the wrath of the new queen, whose duchys independence had been compromised. Anne and Peter produced only one surviving child, Suzanne, born 10 May 1491, Suzanne succeeded Peter as suo jure Duchess of Bourbon on his death in 1503. Anne, however, had always been the dominant member in her marriage and remained the administrator of the Bourbon lands after his death. In addition to having had a strong, formidable personality, Anne was an intelligent, shrewd. Her father had termed her the least foolish woman in France, Anne was dark-haired with a high forehead, a widows peak, and finely-arched eyebrows. She was further described as having had clear brown eyes, direct in their gaze, a sharp, haughty nose, thin lips, thin hands, Anne was responsible for the housing and education for many of the aristocracys children including Diane de Poitiers and Louise of Savoy. She is credited with instructing these people with the new refined manners such as not using their fingers to wipe their noses. Louise of Savoy would act as regent several times when her son Francis was king, by being raised by Anne, she was able to learn about France and its governance from up close

Anne of France
–
Portrait of Anne of France, from a triptych by Master of Moulins
Anne of France
–
Depiction of Anne and St. John the Evangelist
Anne of France
–
Triptych which depicts St. Anne presenting Anne and her daughter Suzanne

2.
Alexios II Komnenos
–
Alexios II Komnenos or Alexius II Comnenus was Byzantine emperor from 1180 to 1183. He was the son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and Maria, daughter of Raymond of Poitiers and he was the long-awaited male heir and was named Alexius as a fulfilment of the AIMA prophecy. On Manuels death in 1180, Maria, who became a nun under the name Xene and she excluded her young son from power, entrusting it instead to Alexios the prōtosebastos, who was popularly believed to be her lover. Their party was defeated on 2 May 1182, but Andronikos Komnenos and he entered Constantinople, received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the government. His arrival was celebrated by a massacre of 80,000 Latins in Constantinople, especially the Venetian merchants, which he made no attempt to stop. During the reign of Alexius II, the Byzantine Empire was invaded by King Béla III, losing Syrmia and Bosnia to the Kingdom of Hungary in 1181, later even Dalmatia was lost to the Venetians. Kilij Arslan II invaded the empire in 1182, defeating the Byzantines at the Siege of Cotyaeum, resulting in the Empire losing Cotyaeum, Alexios is a character in the historical novel Agnes of France by Greek writer Kostas Kyriazis. The novel describes the events of the reigns of Manuel I, Alexios II, list of Byzantine emperors Pseudo-Alexios II Harris, Jonathan, Byzantium and the Crusades, Bloomsbury, 2nd ed.2014

3.
Andronikos I Komnenos
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Andronikos I Komnenos, usually Latinized as Andronicus I Comnenus, was Byzantine Emperor from 1183 to 1185. He was the son of Isaac Komnenos and the grandson of the emperor Alexios I, Andronikos Komnenos was born around 1118. He was handsome and eloquent, active, hardy, courageous, a general and an able politician. His early years were spent alternately in pleasure and in military service, in 1141 he was taken captive by the Seljuq Turks and remained in their hands for a year. On being ransomed, he went to Constantinople, where he was held at the court of his cousin, here the charms of his niece, Eudoxia, attracted him and she became his mistress. In 1152, accompanied by Eudoxia, he set out for an important command in Cilicia, failing in his principal enterprise, an attack upon Mopsuestia, he returned but was again appointed to the command of a province. This second post he seems also to have left after an interval, for he appeared again in Constantinople. About 1153, a conspiracy against the Emperor in which Andronikos participated was discovered, after repeated unsuccessful attempts, he escaped in 1165. After passing through many dangers, including captivity in Vlach territory, he reached Kiev, Andronikos was removed from court but received the province of Cilicia. Still under the displeasure of the Emperor, Andronikos fled to the court of Raymond, while residing here he captivated and seduced the beautiful daughter of the Prince, Philippa, sister of the Empress Maria. The Emperor was again angered by this dishonour, and Andronikos was compelled to flee and he took refuge with King Amalric I of Jerusalem, whose favour he gained, and who invested him with the Lordship of Beirut. In Jerusalem he saw Theodora Komnene, the widow of King Baldwin III. Although Andronikos was at that time fifty-six years old, age had not diminished his charms, to avoid the vengeance of the Emperor, she fled with Andronikos to the court of Nur ad-Din, the Sultan of Damascus. Feeling unsafe there, they continued their perilous journey through the Caucasus and they were well received by King George III of Georgia, whose anonymous sister had probably been the first wife of Andronikos. Andronikos was granted estates in Kakhetia, in the east of Georgia, finally, Andronikos and Theodora settled in the ancestral lands of the Komnenoi at Oinaion, on the shores of the Black Sea, between Trebizond and Sinope. While Andronikos was on one of his incursions into Trebizond, his castle was surprised by the governor of that province, to obtain their release Andronikos in early 1180 made abject submission to the Emperor and, appearing in chains before him, besought pardon. This he obtained, and he was allowed to retire with Theodora into banishment at Oinaion, in 1180 the Emperor Manuel died and was succeeded by his ten-year-old son Alexios II, who was under the guardianship of his mother, Empress Maria. Her Latin origins and culture led to creeping resentment from her Greek subjects and they had felt insulted by the Western tastes of Manuel, and being ruled by his Western wife built tensions to an explosion of rioting that almost became a full civil war

4.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic

5.
House of Capet
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The House of Capet or the Direct Capetians, also called the House of France, or simply the Capets, ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328. It was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians, historians in the 19th century came to apply the name Capetian to both the ruling house of France and to the wider-spread male-line descendants of Hugh Capet. It was not a contemporary practice and they were sometimes called the third race of kings, the Merovingians being the first, and the Carolingians being the second. The name is derived from the nickname of Hugh, the first Capetian King, the direct succession of French kings, father to son, from 987 to 1316, of thirteen generations in almost 330 years, was unparallelled in recorded history. The direct line of the House of Capet came to an end in 1328, with the death of Charles IV, the throne passed to the House of Valois, descended from a younger brother of Philip IV. He then proceeded to make it hereditary in his family, by securing the election and coronation of his son, Robert II, the throne thus passed securely to Robert on his fathers death, who followed the same custom – as did many of his early successors. Louis VIII – the eldest son and heir of Philip Augustus – married Blanche of Castile, a granddaughter of Aliénor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England. In her name, he claimed the crown of England, invading at the invitation of the English Barons and these lands were added to the French crown, further empowering the Capetian family. Louis IX – Saint Louis – succeeded Louis VIII as a child, unable to rule for several years, the government of the realm was undertaken by his mother, at the death of Louis IX, France under the Capetians stood as the pre-eminent power in Western Europe. Unfortunately for the Capetians, the proved a failure. Philip IV had married Jeanne, the heiress of Navarre and Champagne, by this marriage, he added these domains to the French crown. More importantly to French history, he summoned the first Estates General – in 1302 – and in 1295 established the so-called Auld Alliance with the Scots and it was Philip IV who presided over the beginning of his Houses end. The first quarter of the century saw each of Philips sons reign in rapid succession, Louis X, Philip V, accordingly, Louis – unwilling to release his wife and return to their marriage – needed to remarry. He arranged a marriage with his cousin, Clementia of Hungary and this proved the case, but the boy – King John I, known as the Posthumous – died after only 5 days, leaving a succession crisis. Eventually, it was decided based on several reasons that Joan was ineligible to inherit the throne, which passed to the Count of Poitiers. Marie died in 1324, giving birth to a stillborn son, the last of the direct Capetians were the daughters of Philip IVs three sons, and Philip IVs daughter, Isabella. Since they were female, they could not transmit their Capetian status to their descendants, the wife of Edward II of England, Isabella overthrew her husband in favour of her son and her co-hort, only for Edward III to execute Mortimer and have Isabella removed from power. Joan, the daughter of Louis X, succeeded on the death of Charles IV to the throne of Navarre, she now being – questions of paternity aside – the unquestioned heiress

House of Capet
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Arms of the King of France

6.
Louis VII of France
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Louis VII was King of the Franks from 1137 until his death. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI of France, hence his nickname, immediately after the annulment of her marriage, Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, to whom she conveyed Aquitaine. When Henry became King of England in 1154, as Henry II, Henrys efforts to preserve and expand on this patrimony for the Crown of England would mark the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England. Louis VIIs reign saw the founding of the University of Paris and he died in 1180 and was succeeded by his son Philip II. Louis was born in 1120 in Paris, the son of Louis VI of France. The early education of Prince Louis anticipated an ecclesiastical career, in October 1131, his father had him anointed and crowned by Pope Innocent II in Reims Cathedral. He spent much of his youth in Saint-Denis, where he built a friendship with the Abbot Suger, an advisor to his father who also served Louis well during his early years as king. Following the death of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, Louis VI moved quickly to have Prince Louis married to Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, heiress of the late duke, on 25 July 1137. In this way, Louis VI sought to add the large, on 1 August 1137, shortly after the marriage, Louis VI died, and Prince Louis became king of France, reigning as Louis VII. The pairing of the monkish Louis and the high-spirited Eleanor was doomed to failure, she once declared that she had thought to marry a king. Louis and Eleanor had two daughters, Marie and Alix, in the first part of his reign, Louis VII was vigorous and zealous in his prerogatives. His accession was marked by no other than uprisings by the burgesses of Orléans and Poitiers. He soon came into violent conflict with Pope Innocent II, however, the pope thus imposed an interdict upon the king. As a result, Champagne decided to side with the pope in the dispute over Bourges, the war lasted two years and ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal army. Louis VII was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town of Vitry-le-François, more than a thousand people who had sought refuge in the church died in the flames. Overcome with guilt and humiliated by ecclesiastical reproach, Louis admitted defeat, removed his armies from Champagne and he accepted Pierre de la Chatre as archbishop of Bourges and shunned Raoul and Petronilla. Desiring to atone for his sins, he declared his intention of mounting a crusade on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges, bernard of Clairvaux assured its popularity by his preaching at Vezelay on Easter 1146. In the meantime, Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, completed his conquest of Normandy in 1144, in exchange for being recognised as Duke of Normandy by Louis, Geoffrey surrendered half of the Vexin — a region vital to Norman security — to Louis

7.
Philip, Count of Flanders
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Philip of Alsace was count of Flanders from 1168 to 1191. He succeeded his father Thierry of Alsace and his reign began in 1157, while he acted as regent and co-count for his father, Thierry, who was frequently away on crusade. He defeated Floris III, Count of Holland and stopped the piracy, Floris was captured in Bruges and remained in prison until 1167, at which point he was being ransomed in exchange for recognition of Flemish suzerainty over Zeeland. By inheritance, Philip also recovered for Flanders the territories of Waasland, in 1159 Philip married Elisabeth of Vermandois, also known as Isabelle, elder daughter of count Raoul I of Vermandois and Petronilla of Aquitaine. When his brother-in-law died, his wife inherited the county of Vermandois and this pushed Flemish authority further south, to its greatest extent thus far, and threatened to completely alter the balance of power in northern France. Philip governed wisely with the aid of Robert dAire, whose role was almost that of a prime minister and they established an effective administrative system and Philips foreign relations were excellent. He mediated in disputes between Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, between Henry II and Thomas Becket, and arranged the marriage of his sister Margaret with Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut. In 1175, Philip discovered that Elisabeth was committing adultery and had her lover, Walter de Fontaines, Philip then obtained complete control of her lands in Vermandois from King Louis VII of France. Philips brothers Matthew and Peter of Alsace also died without surviving children, so in 1177, before going on crusade, he designated Margaret and Baldwin as his heirs. In the Holy Land, Philip hoped to take part in an invasion of Egypt. A Byzantine fleet of 150 galleys was waiting at Acre when Philip arrived on 2 August and he and King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem were first cousins, sharing a grandfather, King Fulk, whose daughter from his first marriage, Sibylla of Anjou, was Philips mother. Baldwin IV was a leper and childless, and offered Philip the regency of the Kingdom of Jerusalem as his closest male relative currently present there, Philip refused both this and the command of the army of the kingdom, saying he was there only as a pilgrim. Instead Baldwin appointed Raynald of Châtillon, to whom Philip would act as an assistant, as William of Tyre says, this being the situation, the count at last revealed the secret thought of his mind and did not try to conceal to what end all his plans were. He had come to have his own vassals married to his cousins, Baldwins sister Sibylla, Baldwin of Ibelin insulted the count in public. Philip left Jerusalem in October to campaign in the north for the Principality of Antioch, meanwhile, the Byzantine alliance against Egypt was abandoned. In November Baldwin IV and Raynald defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard, Philip returned from Palestine in 1179, at which point Louis VII, now sick, named him guardian of his young son Philip II. One year later, Philip of Alsace had his protégé married to his niece, Isabelle of Hainaut, offering the County of Artois and other Flemish territories as dowry, when Louis VII died, Philip II began to assert his independence. King Philip refused to open battle and gained the upper hand

Philip, Count of Flanders
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Philip I

8.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis

Constantinople
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Constantinople in the Byzantine era
Constantinople
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Map of Byzantine Constantinople
Constantinople
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Emperor Constantine I presents a representation of the city of Constantinople as tribute to an enthroned Mary and Christ Child in this church mosaic. Hagia Sophia, c. 1000
Constantinople
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Coin struck by Constantine I to commemorate the founding of Constantinople

9.
Holy Land
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The Holy Land is an area roughly located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that also includes the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River. Traditionally, it is synonymous with both the biblical Land of Israel and historical Palestine, the term usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian territories, western Jordan, and parts of southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria. It is considered holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, many sites in the Holy Land have long been pilgrimage destinations for adherents of the Abrahamic religions, including Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Baháís. Pilgrims visit the Holy Land to touch and see physical manifestations of their faith, confirm their beliefs in the context with collective excitation. Jews do not commonly refer to the Land of Israel as Holy Land, the Tanakh explicitly refers to it as holy land in only one passage, in Zechariah 2,16. The holiness of the Land of Israel is generally implied in the Tanakh by the Land being given to the Israelites by God, that is, it is the promised land, an integral part of Gods covenant. In the Torah many mitzvot commanded to the Israelites can only be performed in the Land of Israel, for example, in the Land of Israel, no land shall be sold permanently. Shmita is only observed with respect to the land of Israel, according to Eliezer Schweid, The uniqueness of the Land of Israel is. geo-theological and not merely climatic. This is the land which faces the entrance of the spiritual world, Jerusalem, as the site of the Temple, is considered especially significant. Sacred burials are still undertaken for diaspora Jews who wish to lie buried in the soil of Israel. According to Jewish tradition, Jerusalem is Mount Moriah, the location of the binding of Isaac, the Hebrew Bible mentions the name Jerusalem 669 times, often because many mitzvot can only be performed within its environs. The name Zion, which refers to Jerusalem, but sometimes the Land of Israel. The Talmud mentions the religious duty of colonising Israel, so significant in Judaism is the act of purchasing land in Israel, the Talmud allows for the lifting of certain religious restrictions of Sabbath observance to further its acquisition and settlement. Rabbi Johanan said that one who walks a distance of 4 cubits in Israel may be confident of a share in the future world, a story says that when R. Eleazar b. Due to the Jewish population being concentrated in Israel, emigration was generally prevented, many Jews wanted Israel to be the place where they died. R. Anan said, To be buried in Israel is like being buried under the altar, the saying His land will absolve His people implies that burial in Israel will cause one to be absolved of all ones sins. Christian books, including editions of the Bible, often had maps of the Holy Land, for instance, the Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae of Heinrich Bünting, a German Protestant pastor, featured such a map. As a geographic term, the description Holy Land loosely encompasses modern-day Israel, in the Quran, the term الأرض المقدسة is mentioned at least seven times, once when Moses proclaims to the Children of Israel, O my people

Holy Land
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A 1759 map entitled The Holy Land, or Palestine, showing not only the Ancient Kingdoms of Judah and Israel in which the 12 Tribes have been distinguished, but also their placement in different periods as indicated in the Holy Scriptures by Tobias Conrad Lotter, Geographer. Augsburg, Germany
Holy Land
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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Christianity, as it is the purported site of Christ's resurrection.
Holy Land
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Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem

10.
Eastern Roman Emperor
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This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Emperors listed below up to Theodosius I in 395 were sole or joint rulers of the entire Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire was the direct legal continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire following the division of the Roman Empire in 395. All Byzantine emperors considered themselves to be the rightful Roman emperor in direct succession from Augustus, the title of all Emperors preceding Heraclius was officially Augustus, although other titles such as Dominus were also used. Their names were preceded by Imperator Caesar and followed by Augustus, following Heraclius, the title commonly became the Greek Basileus, which had formerly meant sovereign but was then used in place of Augustus. Following the establishment of the rival Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe, in later centuries, the Emperor could be referred to by Western Christians as the Emperor of the Greeks. Towards the end of the Empire, the standard formula of the Byzantine ruler was in Christ, Emperor. For Roman emperors before Constantine I, see List of Roman emperors, family tree of the Byzantine emperors List of Roman emperors List of Roman usurpers List of Byzantine usurpers List of Roman and Byzantine empresses

11.
Manuel I Komnenos
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Manuel I Komnenos was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. His reign saw the last flowering of the Komnenian restoration, during which the Byzantine Empire had seen a resurgence of its military and economic power, and had enjoyed a cultural revival. Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic, in the process he made alliances with the Pope and the resurgent West. He invaded the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, although unsuccessfully, the passage of the potentially dangerous Second Crusade was adroitly managed through his empire. Manuel established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader states of Outremer, facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt. Called ho Megas by the Greeks, Manuel is known to have inspired loyalty in those who served him. He also appears as the hero of a written by his secretary, John Kinnamos. Manuel, who was influenced by his contact with western Crusaders, modern historians, however, have been less enthusiastic about him. Manuel Komnenos was the son of John II Komnenos and Piroska of Hungary. His maternal grandfather was St. Ladislaus, having distinguished himself in his fathers war against the Seljuk Turks, in 1143 Manuel was chosen as his successor by John, in preference to his elder surviving brother Isaac. After John died on 8 April 1143, his son, Manuel, was acclaimed emperor by the armies and he still had to take care of his fathers funeral, and tradition demanded he organise the foundation of a monastery on the spot where his father died. Axouch arrived in the capital even before news of the death had reached it. He quickly secured the loyalty of the city, and when Manuel entered the capital in August 1143, he was crowned by the new Patriarch, Michael Kourkouas. A few days later, with nothing more to fear as his position as emperor was now secure, then he ordered 2 golden pieces to be given to every householder in Constantinople and 200 pounds of gold to be given to the Byzantine Church. The empire that Manuel inherited from his father had undergone great changes since its foundation by Constantine, in the time of his predecessor Justinian I, parts of the former Western Roman Empire had been recovered including Italy, Africa and part of Spain. They had then swept on westwards into what in the time of Constantine had been the provinces of the Roman Empire, in North Africa. In the centuries since, the emperors had ruled over a realm that largely consisted of Asia Minor in the east, yet the empire that Manuel inherited was a polity facing formidable challenges. At the end of the 11th century, the Normans of Sicily had removed Italy from the control of the Byzantine Emperor, the Seljuk Turks had done the same with central Anatolia

Manuel I Komnenos
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Manuscript miniature of Manuel I (part of double portrait with Maria of Antioch, Vatican Library, Rome)
Manuel I Komnenos
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Arrival of the Second Crusade before Constantinople, portrayed in Jean Fouquet's painting from around 1455–1460, Arrivée des croisés à Constantinople.
Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos
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Pope Adrian IV, who negotiated with Manuel against the Norman King William I of Sicily

12.
Second Crusade
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The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe as a Catholic holy war against Islam. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year to the forces of Zengi, the county had been founded during the First Crusade by King Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098. While it was the first Crusader state to be founded, it was also the first to fall, the armies of the two kings marched separately across Europe. After crossing Byzantine territory into Anatolia, both armies were defeated by the Seljuk Turks. Louis and Conrad and the remnants of their armies reached Jerusalem, the crusade in the east was a failure for the crusaders and a great victory for the Muslims. It would ultimately have a key influence on the fall of Jerusalem, the only Christian success of the Second Crusade came to a combined force of 13,000 Flemish, Frisian, Norman, English, Scottish, and German crusaders in 1147. Travelling from England, by ship, to the Holy Land, after the First Crusade and the minor Crusade of 1101 there were three crusader states established in the east, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa. A fourth, the County of Tripoli, was established in 1109, Count Baldwin II and future count Joscelin of Courtenay were taken captive after their defeat at the Battle of Harran in 1104. Baldwin and Joscelin were both captured a second time in 1122, and although Edessa recovered somewhat after the Battle of Azaz in 1125, Joscelin was killed in battle in 1131. His successor Joscelin II was forced into an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, Joscelin had also quarreled with the Count of Tripoli and the Prince of Antioch, leaving Edessa with no powerful allies. Meanwhile, the Seljuq Zengi, Atabeg of Mosul, had added to his rule in 1128 Aleppo, both Zengi and King Baldwin II turned their attention towards Damascus, Baldwin was defeated outside the great city in 1129. Damascus, ruled by the Burid Dynasty, later allied with King Fulk when Zengi besieged the city in 1139 and 1140, in late 1144, Joscelin II allied with the Ortoqids and marched out of Edessa with almost his entire army to support the Ortoqid army against Aleppo. Zengi, already seeking to take advantage of Fulks death in 1143, hurried north to besiege Edessa, manasses of Hierges, Philip of Milly and others were sent from Jerusalem to assist, but arrived too late. Joscelin II continued to rule the remnants of the county from Turbessel, Zengi himself was praised throughout Islam as defender of the faith and al-Malik al-Mansur, the victorious king. He did not pursue an attack on the territory of Edessa, or the Principality of Antioch. Events in Mosul compelled him to home, and he once again set his sights on Damascus. However, he was assassinated by a slave in 1146 and was succeeded in Aleppo by his son Nur ad-Din, the news of the fall of Edessa was brought back to Europe first by pilgrims early in 1145, and then by embassies from Antioch, Jerusalem and Armenia. Bishop Hugh of Jabala reported the news to Pope Eugene III, Hugh also told the Pope of an eastern Christian king, who, it was hoped, would bring relief to the crusader states, this is the first documented mention of Prester John

Second Crusade
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Edessa, seen here on the right of this map (c. 1140), was recaptured by the Turks. This was the primary cause of the Second Crusade.
Second Crusade
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St Bernard in stained glass. From the Upper Rhine, ca. 1450.
Second Crusade
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The Siege of Lisbon by D. Afonso Henriques by Joaquim Rodrigues Braga (1840)
Second Crusade
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Map of the Second Crusade in the Levant

13.
Western Europe
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Western Europe, or West Europe, is the region comprising the western part of Europe. Below, some different geographic and geopolitical definitions of the term are outlined, prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. This cultural and linguistic division was reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire. The division between these two was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived, in East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as the Far West. The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In his writings, Ricci referred to himself as Matteo of the Far West, the term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Post-war Europe would be divided into two spheres, the West, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Although some countries were neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political. This division largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe, the world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic, COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. Although the term Western Europe was more prominent during the Cold War, it remains much in use, in 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference, when the Western European Union was established and it was declared defunct in 2011, after the Treaty of Lisbon, and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries, six member countries, five observer countries. The CIA divides Western Europe into two smaller subregions, regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European Union is an economic and political union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe, some Western and Northern European countries of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are members of EFTA, though cooperating to varying degree with the European Union

Western Europe
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The Great Schism in Christianity, the predominant religion in Western Europe at the time.
Western Europe
Western Europe
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Geopolitical Occident of Europe

14.
Heir apparent
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An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. An heir presumptive, by contrast, is someone who is first in line to inherit a title, today these terms most commonly describe heirs to hereditary titles, particularly monarchies. They are also used metaphorically to indicate an anointed successor to any position of power, in France the title was le Dauphin. See crown prince for more examples and this article primarily describes the term heir apparent in a hereditary system regulated by laws of primogeniture—as opposed to cases where a monarch has a say in naming the heir. An heir presumptive, by contrast, can always be bumped down in the succession by the birth of more closely related in a legal sense to the current title-holder. The clearest example occurs in the case of a title-holder with no children, if at any time he or she were to produce children, they rank ahead of whatever more distant relative had been heir presumptive. Many legal systems assume childbirth is always possible regardless of age or health, in such circumstances a person may be, in a practical sense, the heir apparent but still, legally speaking, heir presumptive. Adelaide was 44 at the time, so pregnancy was even if unlikely. Daughters may inherit titles that descend according to male-preference primogeniture, thus, normally, even an only daughter will not be heir apparent, since at any time a brother might be born who, though younger, would assume that position. Hence, she is an heir presumptive, for example, Queen Elizabeth II was heir presumptive during the reign of her father, King George VI, because at any stage up to his death, George could have fathered a legitimate son. In a system of absolute primogeniture that disregards gender, female heirs apparent occur, several European monarchies that have adopted such systems in the last few decades furnish practical examples. Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway is heir apparent to her father, Victoria was not heir apparent from birth, but gained the status in 1980 following a change in the Swedish Act of Succession. Her younger brother Carl Philip was thus heir apparent for a few months, then, as the representative of her fathers line she would assume a place ahead of any more distant relatives. Such a situation has not to date occurred with the English or British throne, several times an heir apparent has died, however, there have been several female heirs apparent to British peerages. In one special case, however, England and Scotland had an heir apparent. William, by contrast, was to reign for life only, thus, although after Marys death William continued to reign, he had no power to beget direct heirs, and Anne became the heir apparent for the remainder of Williams reign. She eventually succeeded him as Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, the position of an heir apparent is normally unshakable, it can be assumed they will inherit. Sometimes, however, extraordinary events—such as the death or the deposition of the parent—intervene

15.
Maria of Antioch
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Maria of Antioch was a Byzantine empress as the wife of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. She was the daughter of Constance of Antioch and her first husband Raymond of Poitiers and her only son was Alexios II Komnenos, who succeeded Manuel in 1180, and died three years afterwards at the age of 14. She acted as regent of the Byzantine Empire in 1180-1182, in 1160, Marias stepfather, Constances second husband Raynald of Châtillon, was taken prisoner by Maj al-Dīn, the ruler of Aleppo and an ally of Nūr al-Dīn. Her mother claimed the Principality of Antioch for herself, but the nobles supported her son, King Baldwin III of Jerusalem set Bohemund III up as prince and appointed as regent the rich and worldly Aimery of Limoges, Latin Patriarch of Antioch and an old opponent of Raynald. Constance protested this decision in Constantinople at the court of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos, at the end of 1159, Manuels wife Empress Eirene had died, and Manuel wanted to marry a princess from one of the Crusader states. Both were renowned for their beauty, but according to John Kinnamos Maria was the beautiful of the two, the tall, blonde-haired princess clearly showed her Norman ancestry. The ambassadors were not satisfied and delayed the marriage for over a year, they had heard rumours concerning Hodiernas infidelity. Count Raymond was insulted and in retaliation attacked Byzantine Cyprus, meanwhile, an imperial embassy led by Alexios Bryennios Komnenos and the prefect of Constantinople, John Kamateros, came to Antioch to negotiate the marriage. Maria embarked from the port of St. Simeon for Constantinople in September 1161, three patriarchs performed the marriage, Luke Chrysoberges, Patriarch of Constantinople, Sophronios, Greek Patriarch of Alexandria, and Athanasios I, Greek Patriarch of Antioch. The marriage was celebrated with feasts, gifts to the church and this strengthened the connection of Antioch to the Byzantine Empire. The marriage also strengthened the position of Marias mother Constance, who now held the regency of Antioch, for several years, Maria was childless. In 1166 she had her first pregnancy, but miscarried a child, a fact which was considered a tragedy by the Emperor. In 1169 Maria finally gave birth to a son, the future emperor Alexios II Komnenos and she played a role in the political and diplomatic life of Constantinople. French being her mother tongue, she was able to observe the double-dealing of the hypoboleus Aaron Isaakios, as a result, Manuel had Aaron blinded. After the death of Manuel in 1180 Maria officially became a nun with the name Xene, as a Westerner who favoured the Italian merchants, Maria was opposed by the Greeks, and her regency was widely considered incompetent. The leaders of the opposition were her stepdaughter, the porphyrogenita Maria Komnene and her husband, the porphyrogenita Maria may have considered herself the rightful heir, as the elder child of Manuel, she was almost as old as her stepmother Maria. Maria and Renier gained the support of the Patriarch Theodosius I, Alexios had the patriarch arrested, leading to open warfare on the streets of Constantinople. Manuels cousin Andronikos Komnenos, who had been exiled during Manuels reign, was invited back by the porphyrogenita Maria and he provoked the citizens into a massacre of the Latin inhabitants, mostly Venetian and Genoese merchants

16.
Pope Alexander III
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Pope Alexander III, born Roland of Siena, was Pope from 7 September 1159 to his death in 1181. He also laid the stone for the Notre-Dame de Paris. Pope Alexander III was born in Siena, from 14th century he is referred to as a member of the aristocratic family of Bandinelli, although this has not been proven. Noonan and Rudolf Weigand have shown this to be another Rolandus and he probably studied at Bologna, where Robert of Torigni notes that he taught theology. In October 1150, Pope Eugene III created him Cardinal-Deacon of Santi Cosma e Damiano, later he became Cardinal-Priest of St Mark. In 1153, he became chancellor and was the leader of the cardinals opposed to German Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. He negotiated the Treaty of Benevento, which restored peaceful relations between Rome and the Kingdom of Sicily, on 7 September 1159, he was chosen the successor of Pope Adrian IV. A minority of the cardinals, however, elected the cardinal priest Octavian and this meant that Alexanders legitimacy was gaining strength, as soon proved by the fact that other monarchs, such as the king of France and King Henry II of England, recognized his authority. Because of imperial strength in Italy, Alexander was forced to reside outside of Rome for a part of his pontificate. The first period he spent in France, the latter chiefly in Gaeta, Benevento, Anagni, Alexander III was the first pope known to have paid direct attention to missionary activities east of the Baltic Sea. The latter appointed a Benedictine monk Fulco as a bishop in Estonia, in 1171, Alexander became the first pope to address the situation of the Church in Finland, with Finns allegedly harassing priests and only relying on God in time of war. Besides checkmating Barbarossa, Alexander humbled King Henry II of England for the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170, to whom he was unusually close and this was the second English saint canonized by Alexander, the first being Edward the Confessor in 1161. Nonetheless, he confirmed the position of Henry as Lord of Ireland in 1172, even as a fugitive, Alexander enjoyed the favour and protection of Louis VII of France. In March 1179, Alexander III held the Third Council of the Lateran, one of the most important mediaeval church councils, the rule was altered slightly in 1996, but was restored in 2007. This synod marked the summit of Alexander IIIs power, by the judicious use of money, however, Alexander III got him into his power, so that he was deposed in January 1180. In 1181, Alexander III excommunicated King William I of Scotland and he died at Civita Castellana on 30 August 1181. Herbermann, Charles, ed. Pope Alexander III and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Alexander. Myriam Soria Audebert, Pontifical Propaganda during the Schisms, Alexander III to the reconquest of Church Unity, in Convaincre et persuader, poitiers, Université de Poitiers-centre détudes supérieures de civilisation médiévale,2007

17.
Kingdom of England
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In the early 11th century the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, united by Æthelstan, became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway. The completion of the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1284 put Wales under the control of the English crown, from the accession of James I in 1603, the Stuart dynasty ruled England in personal union with Scotland and Ireland. Under the Stuarts, the kingdom plunged into war, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649. The monarchy returned in 1660, but the Civil War had established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without the consent of Parliament and this concept became legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. From this time the kingdom of England, as well as its state the United Kingdom. On 1 May 1707, under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707, the Anglo-Saxons referred to themselves as the Engle or the Angelcynn, originally names of the Angles. They called their land Engla land, meaning land of the English, by Æthelweard Latinized Anglia, from an original Anglia vetus, the name Engla land became England by haplology during the Middle English period. The Latin name was Anglia or Anglorum terra, the Old French, by the 14th century, England was also used in reference to the entire island of Great Britain. The standard title for all monarchs from Æthelstan until the time of King John was Rex Anglorum, Canute the Great, a Dane, was the first king to call himself King of England. In the Norman period Rex Anglorum remained standard, with use of Rex Anglie. The Empress Matilda styled herself Domina Anglorum, from the time of King John onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of Rex or Regina Anglie. In 1604 James VI and I, who had inherited the English throne the previous year, the English and Scottish parliaments, however, did not recognise this title until the Acts of Union of 1707. The kingdom of England emerged from the unification of the early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdoms known as the Heptarchy, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Essex, Sussex. The Viking invasions of the 9th century upset the balance of power between the English kingdoms, and native Anglo-Saxon life in general, the English lands were unified in the 10th century in a reconquest completed by King Æthelstan in 927 CE. During the Heptarchy, the most powerful king among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms might become acknowledged as Bretwalda, the decline of Mercia allowed Wessex to become more powerful. It absorbed the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex in 825, the kings of Wessex became increasingly dominant over the other kingdoms of England during the 9th century. In 827, Northumbria submitted to Egbert of Wessex at Dore, in 886, Alfred the Great retook London, which he apparently regarded as a turning point in his reign. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that all of the English people not subject to the Danes submitted themselves to King Alfred, asser added that Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, restored the city of London splendidly

Kingdom of England
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The dominions of Cnut the Great (1014–1035)
Kingdom of England
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Flag
Kingdom of England
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King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, surrounded by his baronage. Illustration from Cassell's History of England, 1902.
Kingdom of England
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Fifteenth-century miniature depicting the English victory over France at the Battle of Agincourt.

18.
Richard I of England
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Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes and he was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was known as Richard Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a military leader. He was also known in Occitan as Oc e No, because of his reputation for terseness, by the age of 16, Richard had taken command of his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father. Richard spoke both French and Occitan and he was born in England, where he spent his childhood, before becoming king, however, he lived most of his adult life in the Duchy of Aquitaine, in the southwest of France. Following his accession, he spent very little time, perhaps as little as six months, most of his life as king was spent on Crusade, in captivity, or actively defending his lands in France. Rather than regarding his kingdom as a responsibility requiring his presence as ruler, nevertheless, he was seen as a pious hero by his subjects. He remains one of the few kings of England remembered by his epithet, rather than regnal number, Richard was born on 8 September 1157, probably at Beaumont Palace, in Oxford, England, son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was a brother of Count William IX of Poitiers, Henry the Young King. As the third son of King Henry II, he was not expected to ascend the throne. He was also a brother of Duke Geoffrey II of Brittany, Queen Eleanor of Castile, Queen Joan of Sicily, and Count John of Mortain. Richard was the younger maternal half-brother of Countess Marie of Champagne, the eldest son of Henry II and Eleanor, William, died in 1156, before Richards birth. Richard is often depicted as having been the son of his mother. His father was Angevin-Norman and great-grandson of William the Conqueror, contemporary historian Ralph of Diceto traced his familys lineage through Matilda of Scotland to the Anglo-Saxon kings of England and Alfred the Great, and from there linked them to Noah and Woden. According to Angevin legend, there was even infernal blood in the family, while his father visited his lands from Scotland to France, Richard probably spent his childhood in England. His first recorded visit to the European continent was in May 1165 and his wet nurse was Hodierna of St Albans, whom he gave a generous pension after he became king. Little is known about Richards education, during his captivity, English prejudice against foreigners was used in a calculated way by his brother John to help destroy the authority of Richards chancellor, William Longchamp, who was a Norman. One of the charges laid against Longchamp, by Johns supporter Hugh

Richard I of England
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Effigy (c. 1199) of Richard I at Fontevraud Abbey, Anjou
Richard I of England
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King Richard I's Great Seal of 1189
Richard I of England
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Geoffrey de Rancon 's Château de Taillebourg, the castle Richard retreated to after Henry II's forces captured 60 knights and 400 archers who fought for Richard when Saintes was captured.
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A silver denier of Richard, struck in his capacity as the Count of Poitiers

19.
Montpellier
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Montpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Hérault department, Montpellier is the 8th largest city of France, and is also the fastest growing city in the country over the past 25 years. Nearly one third of the population are students from three universities and from three higher education institutions that are outside the university framework in the city. Located on the south coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, it is the third-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast after Marseille and Nice. Montpellier is one of the few cities in France without any Roman heritage. In the Early Middle Ages, the episcopal town of Maguelone was the major settlement in the area. Montpellier, first mentioned in a document of 985, was founded under a feudal dynasty, the Guilhem. The two surviving towers of the city walls, the Tour des Pins and the Tour de la Babotte, were built later, william VIII of Montpellier gave freedom for all to teach medicine in Montpellier in 1180. This era marked the point of Montpelliers prominence. The city became a possession of the Kings of Aragon in 1204 by the marriage of Peter II of Aragon with Marie of Montpellier, who was given the city and its dependencies as part of her dowry. Montpellier gained a charter in 1204 when Peter and Marie confirmed the traditional freedoms. Under the Kings of Aragon, Montpellier became an important city, a major economic centre. It was the second or third most important city of France at that time, with its importance steadily increasing, the city finally gained a bishop, who moved from Maguelone in 1536, and the huge monastery chapel became a cathedral. In 1432, Jacques Cœur established himself in the city and it became an important economic centre, at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century, many of the inhabitants of Montpellier became Protestants and the city became a stronghold of Protestant resistance to the Catholic French crown. In 1622, King Louis XIII besieged the city surrendered after a two months siege, afterwards building the Citadel of Montpellier to secure it. Louis XIV made Montpellier capital of Bas Languedoc, and the town started to embellish itself, by building the Promenade du Peyrou, the Esplanade, after the French Revolution, the city became the capital of the much smaller Hérault. During the 19th century the city developed into an industrial centre, in the 1960s, its population grew dramatically after French settlers in Algeria were resettled in the city following Algerias independence from France. In the 1980s and 1990s, the city drew attention with a number of redevelopment projects, such as the Corum

20.
Genoa
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Genoa is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015,594,733 people lived within the administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba due to its glorious past, part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2006. The citys rich history in notably its art, music. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Genoa, which forms the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of north-west Italy, is one of the countrys major economic centres. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, is among the oldest in the world and has played an important role in the citys prosperity since the middle of the 15th century. Today a number of leading Italian companies are based in the city, including Fincantieri, Selex ES, Ansaldo Energia, Ansaldo STS, Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Piaggio Aerospace, the Genoa area has been inhabited since the fifth or fourth millennium BC. In ancient times this area was frequented and inhabited by Ligures, Phoenicians, Phocaeans, Greeks, and Etruscans. The city cemetery, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks, but the fine harbour probably saw use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans. In the 5th century BC was founded the first oppidum at the foot of the today called the Castle Hill which now is inside the medieval old town. The ancient Ligurian city was known as Stalia, so referred to by Artemidorus Ephesius and Pomponius Mela, Ligurian Stalia was overshadowed by the powerful Marseille and Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona. Stalia had an alliance with Rome through a foedus aequum in the course of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians accordingly destroyed it in 209 BC. The town was rebuilt and, after the Carthaginian Wars ended in 146 BC. it received municipal rights, the original castrum thenceforth expanded towards the current areas of Santa Maria di Castello and the San Lorenzo promontory. Trades included skins, wood, and honey, goods were shipped to the mainland, up to major cities like Tortona and Piacenza. Among the archeological remains from the Roman period, an amphitheatre was also found, another theory traces the name to the Etruscan word Kainua which means New City and still another from the Latin word ianua, related to the name of the God Janus, meaning door or passage. The latter is in reference to its position at the centre of the Ligurian coastal arch. The Latin name, oppidum Genua, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as part of the Augustean Regio IX Liguria, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths occupied Genoa

21.
Eustathius of Thessalonica
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Eustathius of Thessalonica was a Greek scholar and Archbishop of Thessalonica. He was officially canonized on June 10,1988, and his feast day is on September 20, a pupil of Nicholas Kataphloron, Eustathius was appointed to the offices of superintendent of petitions, professor of rhetoric, and was ordained a deacon in Constantinople. He was ordained bishop of Myra, around the year 1178, he was appointed to the archbishopric of Thessalonica, where he remained until his death around 1195/1196. Accounts of his life and work are given in the orations by Euthymius. Niketas Choniates praised him as the most learned man of his age and he wrote commentaries on ancient Greek poets, theological treatises, addresses, letters, and an important account of the sack of Thessalonica by William II of Sicily in 1185. Of his works, his commentaries on Homer are the most widely referred to, other works exhibit impressive character, and oratorical power, which earned him the esteem of the Komnenoi emperors. Politically, Eustathios was a supporter of emperor Manuel I, an original thinker, Eustathios sometimes praised such secular values as military prowess. He decried slavery, and believed in the concept of progress of civilization from a primitive to a more advanced state. His most important works are the following, On the Capture of Thessalonica, the Greek text was edited by Kyriakidis, with an Italian translation by V. Rotolo, there is an English translation by J. Melville-Jones, and a German translation by H. Hunger. A number of orations, some of which have been edited by P. Wirth, in 2013 a translation of six of the earliest of these speeches was published with a commentary by Andrew F. Stone. Commentaries on Homers Iliad and Odyssey and these address questions of grammar, etymology, mythology, history and geography. They are not so much original commentaries as extracts from earlier commentators - there are many correspondences with Homeric scholia and this is a great tribute to the state of the libraries of Constantinople and of classical scholarship there in the 12th century. He was also a reader of the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus. Some of the etymological and grammatical comments by Eustathioss Alexandrian predecessors are full of errors, the first printed edition, by Majoranus, was published in Rome in 1542-1550, an inaccurate reprint being later published in Basel in 1559-1560. A. Potitus edition, contains only the commentary on the first five books of the Iliad with a Latin translation and these were superseded by the edition of M. van der Valk,1971 onwards. Extracts from the commentaries are quoted in editions of the Homeric poems. This is as diffuse as the commentary on Homer, but includes numerous valuable extracts from earlier writers, no manuscript of this has come to light, but the introduction survives. (The introduction was first published by Tafel in his Eustathii Thessalonicensis Opuscula, from which it was reprinted separately by Schneidewin, some were first published by Tafel in the 1832 Opuscula just mentioned, some appeared later, as by P. Wirth for the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae series

22.
Thessaloniki
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Its nickname is η Συμπρωτεύουσα, literally the co-capital, a reference to its historical status as the Συμβασιλεύουσα or co-reigning city of the Eastern Roman Empire, alongside Constantinople. The city is renowned for its festivals, events and vibrant cultural life in general, Thessaloniki was the 2014 European Youth Capital. The city of Thessaloniki was founded in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, an important metropolis by the Roman period, Thessaloniki was the second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire. It was conquered by the Ottomans in 1430, and passed from the Ottoman Empire to modern Greece on November 8,1912, the citys main university, Aristotle University, is the largest in Greece and the Balkans. Thessaloniki is a popular tourist destination in Greece, among street photographers, the center of Thessaloniki is also considered the most popular destination for street photography in Greece. All variations of the name derive from the original appellation in Ancient Greek, i. e. Θεσσαλονίκη. The alternative name Salonica derives from the variant form Σαλονίκη in colloquial Greek speech, in local speech, the citys name is typically pronounced with a dark and deep L characteristic of Macedonian Greek accent. The name often appears in writing in the abbreviated form Θεσ/νίκη, the city was founded around 315 BC by the King Cassander of Macedon, on or near the site of the ancient town of Therma and 26 other local villages. He named it after his wife Thessalonike, a half-sister of Alexander the Great, under the kingdom of Macedon the city retained its own autonomy and parliament and evolved to become the most important city in Macedon. After the fall of the kingdom of Macedon in 168 BC, the city later became the capital of one of the four Roman districts of Macedonia. Later it became the capital of all the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire because of the importance in the Balkan peninsula. At the time of the Roman Empire, about 50 A. D. Later, Paul wrote two letters to the new church at Thessaloniki, preserved in the Biblical canon as First and Second Thessalonians. Some scholars hold that the First Epistle to the Thessalonians is the first written book of the New Testament, in 306 AD, Thessaloniki acquired a patron saint, St. Demetrius, a native of Thessalonica whom Galerius put to death. A basilical church was first built in the 5th century AD dedicated to St. Demetrius, in 379, when the Roman Prefecture of Illyricum was divided between the East and West Roman Empires, Thessaloniki became the capital of the new Prefecture of Illyricum. In 390, Gothic troops under the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, led a massacre against the inhabitants of Thessalonica, by the time of the Fall of Rome in 476, Thessaloniki was the second-largest city of the Eastern Roman Empire. From the first years of the Byzantine Empire, Thessaloniki was considered the city in the Empire after Constantinople. With a population of 150,000 in the mid-12th century, the city held this status until its transfer to Venetian control in 1423. In the 14th century, the population exceeded 100,000 to 150,000

23.
William of Tyre
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William of Tyre was a medieval prelate and chronicler. As archbishop of Tyre, he is known as William II to distinguish him from a predecessor. Following Williams return to Jerusalem in 1165, King Amalric made him an ambassador to the Byzantine Empire, William became tutor to the kings son, the future King Baldwin IV, whom William discovered to be a leper. After Amalrics death, William became chancellor and archbishop of Tyre, as he was involved in the dynastic struggle that developed during Baldwin IVs reign, his importance waned when a rival faction gained control of royal affairs. He was passed over for the prestigious Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and died in obscurity, William wrote an account of the Lateran Council and a history of the Islamic states from the time of Muhammad. He is famous today as the author of a history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, William composed his chronicle in excellent Latin for his time, with numerous quotations from classical literature. The chronicle is given the title Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum or Historia Ierosolimitana. It was translated into French soon after his death, and thereafter into other languages. Because it is the source for the history of twelfth-century Jerusalem written by a native. However, more recent historians have shown that Williams involvement in the political disputes resulted in detectable biases in his account. Despite this, he is considered the greatest chronicler of the crusades, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded in 1099 at the end of the First Crusade. It was the third of four Christian territories to be established by the crusaders, following the County of Edessa and the Principality of Antioch, during the kingdoms early decades, the population was swelled by pilgrims visiting the holiest sites of Christendom. Merchants from the Mediterranean city-states of Italy and France were eager to exploit the trade markets of the east. Williams family probably originated in either France or Italy, since he was familiar with both countries. His parents were merchants who had settled in the kingdom and were apparently well-to-do. William was born in Jerusalem around 1130 and he had at least one brother, Ralph, who was one of the citys burgesses, a non-noble leader of the merchant community. Nothing more is known about his family, except that his mother died before 1165, as a child William was educated in Jerusalem, at the cathedral school in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The scholaster, or school-master, John the Pisan, taught William to read and write, and first introduced him to Latin

William of Tyre
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William of Tyre writing his history, from a 13th-century Old French translation, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS 2631, f.1r
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William of Tyre discovers Baldwin's first symptoms of leprosy (MS of L'Estoire d'Eracles (French translation of William of Tyre's Historia), painted in France, 1250s. British Library, London).
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Saladin burning a town, from a manuscript of the French translation of the Historia
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Sixteenth-century bronze statue of Godfrey of Bouillon from the group of heroes surrounding the memorial to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in the Hofkirche, Innsbruck. By William's time, Godfrey was seen as the heroic leader of the First Crusade, and his strength and virtue had become legendary.

24.
Great Palace of Constantinople
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It served as the main royal residence of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine emperors from 330 to 1081 and was the center of imperial administration for over 690 years. Only a few remnants and fragments of its foundations have survived into the present day, when Constantine I moved the Roman capital to Constantinople in 330, he planned out a palace for himself and his heirs. The palace was located between the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia and it was rebuilt and expanded several times during its history. Much of the complex was destroyed during the Nika riots of 532 and was rebuilt lavishly by the emperor Justinian I, further extensions and alterations were commissioned by Justinian II and Basil I. However, it had fallen into disrepair by the time of Constantine VII and it declined substantially during the following century when parts of the complex were demolished or filled with rubble. During the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, the Palace was plundered by the soldiers of Boniface of Montferrat, although the subsequent Latin emperors continued to use the Palace complex, they lacked money for its maintenance. The last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, went as far as removing the lead roofs of the Palace, consequently, when the city was retaken by the forces of Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261, the Great Palace was in disrepair. The Palaiologos emperors largely abandoned it, ruling from Blachernae and using the vaults as a prison, when Mehmed II entered the city in 1453, he found the palace ruined and abandoned. Much of the palace was demolished in the rebuilding of Constantinople in the early years of the Ottoman era. The site of the Great Palace began to be investigated in the late 19th century, on this site prison cells, many large rooms, and possibly tombs were found. Initial excavations were carried out by French archaeologists at the Palace of Manganae between 1921-23, a much larger excavation was carried out by the University of St Andrews in 1935 to 1938. Further excavations took place under the directorship of David Talbot Rice from 1952 to 1954, the archaeologists discovered a spectacular series of wall and floor mosaics which have been conserved in the Great Palace Mosaic Museum. The Palace was located in the corner of the peninsula where Constantinople is situated, behind the Hippodrome. The Palace is considered by scholars to have been a series of pavilions, the total surface area of the Great Palace exceeded 200,000 square feet. It stood on a sloping hillside that descends nearly 33 metres from the Hippodrome to the shoreline. The palace complex occupied six distinct terraces descending to the shore, the main entrance to the Palace quarter was the Chalke gate at the Augustaion. The Augustaion was located on the side of the Hagia Sophia, and it was there that the citys main street. To the east of the lay the Senate house or Palace of Magnaura, where the University was later housed, and to the west the Milion

Great Palace of Constantinople
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A scene from the scroll border of the Great Palace Mosaic, a mosaic floor of scenes from daily life and mythology in a hall of yet unidentified uses and controversial date.
Great Palace of Constantinople
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One of the piers from the Great Palace, now in the courtyard of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums

25.
Patriarch of Constantinople
–
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history. The ecumenical patriarchs in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity, in the Middle Ages they played a major role in the affairs of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as in the politics of the Orthodox world, and in spreading Christianity among the Slavs. Within the five sees of the Pentarchy, the Ecumenical Patriarch is regarded as the successor of Andrew the Apostle. The current holder of the office is Bartholomew I, the 270th holder of the title, in his role as head of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, he also holds the title Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome. The see of Byzantium, whose foundation was ascribed to Andrew the Apostle, was originally a common bishopric. It gained importance when Emperor Constantine elevated Byzantium to a second capital alongside Rome, the sees ecclesiastical status as the second of five Patriarchates were developed by the Ecumenical Councils of Constantinople in 381 and Chalcedon in 451. The Turkish government recognizes him as the leader of the Greek minority in Turkey. The Patriarch was subject to the authority of the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, today, according to Turkish law, he is subject to the authority of the state of Turkey and is required to be a citizen of Turkey to be Patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople has been dubbed the Ecumenical Patriarch since the 6th century, the monastic communities of Mount Athos are stauropegic and are directly under the jurisdiction of Ecumenical Patriarch, who is the only bishop with jurisdiction thereover. The Ecumenical Patriarch has a role among Orthodox bishops, though it is not without its controversy. He is primus inter pares, as he is senior among all Orthodox bishops and this primacy, expressed in canonical literature as presbeia, grants to the Ecumenical Patriarch the right to preside at pan-Orthodox synods. Additionally, the literature of the Orthodox Church grants to the Ecumenical Patriarch the right to hear appeals in cases of dispute between bishops. Historically, the Ecumenical Patriarch has heard such appeals and sometimes was invited to intervene in other disputes and difficulties. Even as early as the 4th century, Constantinople was instrumental in the deposition of multiple bishops outside its traditional jurisdiction. This still occurs today, as when in 2006 the patriarchate was invited to assist in declaring the archbishop of the Church of Cyprus incompetent due to his having Alzheimers disease. Additionally, in 2005, the Ecumenical Patriarchate convoked a synod to express the Orthodox worlds confirmation of the deposition of Patriarch Irenaios of Jerusalem. That is, his role is one of promoting and sustaining Church unity. Such a title is acceptable if it refers to this unique role, the five patriarchs of the ancient Pentarchy are to be given seniority of honour, but have no actual power over other bishops other than the power of the synod they are chairing

Patriarch of Constantinople
Patriarch of Constantinople
–
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
Patriarch of Constantinople
–
Emblem found atop the front entrance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Patriarch of Constantinople
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Throne room inside the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Gospel is enthroned on the dais; the Patriarch sits on the lower throne in front.

26.
Constance of Antioch
–
Constance of Hauteville was the ruling Princess of Antioch from 1130 to 1163. She was the child of Bohemond II of Antioch by his wife. Constance succeeded her father, who fell in battle, at the age of two, although his cousin, Roger II of Sicily, laid claim to Antioch and her mother assumed the regency, but the Antiochene noblemen replaced her with her father, Baldwin II of Jerusalem. After he died in 1131, Alice again tried to control of the government. Constance was given in marriage to Raymond of Poitiers in 1136, during the subsequent years, Raymond ruled Antioch while Constance gave birth to four children. After Raymond was murdered after a battle in 1149, Fulk of Anjous son, Baldwin III of Jerusalem and he tried to persuade Constance to remarry, but she did not accept his candidates. She also refused to marry a relative of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenus. Finally, she found a love interest and was married to Raynald of Châtillon, after her second husband fell into captivity around 1160–1161, Constance wanted to rule Antioch alone, but Baldwin III of Jerusalem declared her fifteen-year-old son, Bohemond III, the lawful prince. Constance disregarded this declaration and took control of the administration of the principality with the assistance of Emperor Manuel, Constance was dethroned in favor of her son shortly before her death. Constance who was born in 1128 was the child of Prince Bohemond II of Antioch and Alice. Bohemond was killed in a battle at the Ceyhan River in February 1130, after his death, Alice assumed the regency for Constance. According to rumors spreading in Antioch, Alice was planning to send Constance to a monastery or to marry her off to a commoner, Bohemonds cousin, Roger II of Sicily, regarded himself as Bohemonds lawful successor because he was the senior member of the House of Hauteville. The Antiochene noblemen sent envoys to Baldwin II, urging him to come to the principality, Alice decided to resist and sought assistance from Imad ad-Din Zengi, Atabeg of Aleppo. However, Baldwin IIs soldiers, who had meanwhile reached Antioch, before long, Alice was forced to beg for mercy from her father. He removed Alice from the regency, ordering her to leave Antioch, the Antiochene noblemen acknowledged Baldwin II as regent, swearing fealty to him and Constance. He made Joscelin I, Count of Edessa, her guardian to rule the principality until her marriage, Baldwin II died on August 21,1131, and Joscelin I died a week later. Alice again laid claim to the regency, however, most Antiochene lords remained hostile to the idea of a female ruler and sent envoys to Baldwin IIs successor, Fulk of Anjou, who was Alices brother-in-law. Alice made an alliance with Joscelin II, Count of Edessa, Fulk had to travel to Antioch by sea, because Pons did not allow him to march through the County of Tripoli

Constance of Antioch
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The Crusader States during the early years of Constance's life.

27.
Raymond of Antioch
–
Raymond of Poitiers was Prince of Antioch from 1136 to 1149. Following the death of Prince Bohemund II of Antioch in 1130, the principality came under the regency first of King Baldwin II, then King Fulk, the reigning princess was Bohemond IIs daughter, Constance. Against the wishes of Alice, a marriage was arranged for Constance with Raymond, at the time staying in England, upon hearing word that Raymond was going to pass through his lands in order to marry the princess of Antioch, King Roger II of Sicily ordered him arrested. By a series of subterfuges, Raymond passed through southern Italy and only arrived at Antioch after 19 April 1136, Patriarch Ralph of Domfront then convinced Alice that Raymond was there to marry her, whereupon she allowed him to enter Antioch and the patriarch married him to Constance. Alice then left the city, now under the control of Raymond, the expedition of 1138, in which Raymond joined with John, and which was to conquer this territory, proved a failure. The expedition culminated in the unsuccessful Siege of Shaizar, Raymond was not anxious to help the emperor to acquire new territories, when their acquisition only meant for him the loss of Antioch. John Comnenus returned unsuccessful to Constantinople, after demanding from Raymond, without response, there followed a struggle between Raymond and the patriarch. Raymond was annoyed by the homage which he had forced to pay to the patriarch in 1135. Eventually Raymond triumphed, and the patriarch was deposed, when, however Raymond demanded from Manuel, who had succeeded John in 1143, the cession of some of the Cilician towns, he found that he had met his match. Manuel forced him to a visit to Constantinople, during which he renewed his oath of homage. In the last year of Raymonds life Louis VII and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine visited Antioch during the Second Crusade, Raymond sought to prevent Louis from going south to Jerusalem and to induce him to stay in Antioch and help in the conquest of Aleppo and Caesarea. Raymond was also suspected of having an affair with his beautiful niece Eleanor. According to John of Salisbury, Louis became suspicious of the attention Raymond lavished on Eleanor, most modern historians dismiss such rumours, however, pointing out the closeness of Raymond and his niece during her early childhood, and the effulgent Aquitainian manner of behaviour. Also, as the pious Louis continued to have relations with his wife, Louis hastily left Antioch and Raymond was balked in his plans. In 1149 he was killed in the Battle of Inab during an expedition against Nur ad-Din Zangi and he was beheaded by Shirkuh, the uncle of Saladin, and his head was placed in a silver box and sent to the Caliph of Baghdad as a gift. For his career see Rey, in the Revue de lorient latin, with Constance, Raymond had five children, Bohemond III Maria, married emperor Manuel I Komnenos Philippa Baldwin Raymond Maalouf, Amin. Ralph of Domfront, Patriarch of Antioch, the New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 4, C. 1024-c.1198, Part II. Murray, Alan V. Van Houts, Elisabeth, ed. Constance, Princess of Antioch, Ancestry, Marriages, anglo-Norman Studies XXXVIII, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2015

Raymond of Antioch
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Raymond of Poitiers welcoming Louis VII in Antioch.
Raymond of Antioch
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Raymond was defeated and killed at the Battle of Inab.
Raymond of Antioch
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Recovery of Raymond's body after the battle of Inab.

28.
Empire of Trebizond
–
The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was a monarchy that flourished during the 13th through 15th centuries, consisting of the far northeastern corner of Anatolia and the southern Crimea. The Emperors of Trebizond pressed their claim on the Imperial throne for decades after the Nicaean reconquest of Constantinople in 1261, the Trapezuntine monarchy survived the longest of the Byzantine successor states. The Despotate of Epirus was slowly decimated, and briefly occupied by the restored Byzantine Empire c. 1340, thereafter becoming a Serbian dependency and later inherited by Italians, ultimately falling to the Ottoman Empire in 1479, having long ceased to contest the Byzantine throne. While the Empire of Nicaea had become the resurrected Byzantine Empire, the Empire of Trebizond continued until 1461 when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered it after a month-long siege and took its ruler and his family into captivity. The Crimean Principality of Theodoro, an offshoot of Trebizond, lasted another 14 years and its demographic legacy endured for several centuries after the Ottoman conquest in 1461 and the region retained a substantial number of Greek Orthodox inhabitants until 1923. These are usually referred to as Pontic Greeks and their displacement was formalized, and the few still remaining were required to leave, in 1923 with the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Many were resettled in Greek Macedonia and those living in the Crimea and the Russian province of Kars Oblast, much of which lies in modern Georgia, stayed longer, with some Greek speaking villages remaining in both locations today. Anthony Bryer has argued that six of the seven banda of the Byzantine theme of Chaldia were maintained in working order by the rulers of Trebizond until the end of the empire, helped by geography. This territory corresponds to an area comprising all or parts of the modern Turkish provinces of Sinop, Samsun, Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon, Bayburt, Gümüşhane, Rize, and Artvin. In the 13th century, some believe the empire controlled the Gazarian Perateia. However, after Michael VIII Palaiologos of Nicaea recaptured Constantinople in 1261, in 1282, John II Komnenos stripped off his imperial regalia before the walls of Constantinople before entering to marry Michaels daughter and accept his legal title of despot. However, his successors used a version of his title, Emperor and Autocrat of the entire East, of the Iberians, rulers of Trebizond were also known as Prince of Lazes. Its wealth and exotic location endowed a lingering fame on the polity, cervantes described the eponymous hero of his Don Quixote as imagining himself for the valour of his arm already crowned at least Emperor of Trebizond. Rabelais had his character Picrochole, the ruler of Piedmont, declare, other allusions and works set in Trebizond continue into the 20th century. The city of Trebizond was the capital of the theme of Chaldia, the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos confirmed him as governor of Chaldia, but kept his son at Constantinople as a hostage for his good conduct. Nevertheless, Gabras proved himself a worthy guardian by repelling a Georgian attack on Trebizond, one of his successors, Gregory Taronites also rebelled with the aid of the Sultan of Cappadocia, but he was defeated and imprisoned, only to be made governor once more. Another successor to Theodore was Constantine Gabras, whom Niketas describes as ruling Trebizond as a tyrant, although that effort came to nothing, this was the last rebel governor known to recorded history prior to the events of 1204. Henceforth, the links between Trebizond and Georgia remained close, but their nature and extent have been disputed, both men were the grandsons of the last Komnenian Byzantine emperor, Andronikos I Komnenos, by his son Manuel Komnenos and Rusudan, daughter of George III of Georgia

29.
Bithynia
–
Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Paphlagonia to the northeast along the Pontic coast, Bithynia was an independent kingdom from the 4th century BC. Its capital Nicomedia was rebuilt on the site of ancient Astacus in 264 BC by Nicomedes I of Bithynia. Bithynia fell to the Roman Republic in 74 BC, and became united with the Pontus region as the province of Bithynia et Pontus and it became a border region to the Seljuk Empire in the 13th century, and was eventually conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the 1330s. Several major cities sat on the shores of the Propontis, Nicomedia, Chalcedon, Cius. Bithynia also contained Nicaea, noted for being the birthplace of the Nicene Creed, on the west and southwest it was separated from Mysia by the river Rhyndacus and on the south it adjoined Phrygia and Galatia. It is occupied by mountains and forests, but has valleys, the most important mountain range is the Mysian Olympus, which towers above Bursa and is clearly visible as far away as Istanbul. Its summits are covered with snow for a part of the year. East of this the range extends for more than 100 miles, both of these ranges are part of the border of mountains which bound the great tableland of Anatolia, Turkey. At its extremity is situated the town of Gemlik at the mouth of a valley, communicating with the lake of Iznik. The Parthenius, the boundary of the province, is a much less considerable stream. The valleys towards the Black Sea abound in fruit trees of all kinds, such as oranges, while the valley of the Sangarius, extensive plantations of mulberry trees supply the silk for which Bursa has long been celebrated, and which is manufactured there on a large scale. Bithynia is named for the Thracian tribe of the Bithyni, mentioned by Herodotus alongside the Thyni, the Thraco-Phrygian migration from the Balkans to Asia Minor would have taken place at some point following the Bronze Age collapse or during the early Iron Age. Herodotus mentions the Thyni and Bithyni as settling side by side, but the last king, Nicomedes IV, was unable to maintain himself in power against Mithridates VI of Pontus. After being restored to his throne by the Roman Senate, he bequeathed his kingdom through his will to the Roman republic, the coinage of these kings show their regal portraits, which tend to be engraved in an extremely accomplished Hellenistic style. As a Roman province, the boundaries of Bithynia changed frequently, during this period, Bithynia was commonly united for administrative purposes with the province of Pontus. Under the Byzantine Empire, Bithynia was again divided into two provinces, separated by the Sangarius, only the area to the west of the river retained the name of Bithynia. Bithynia attracted much attention because of its roads and its position between the frontiers of the Danube in the north and the Euphrates in the south-east

Bithynia
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Photo of a 15th-century map showing Bithynia.
Bithynia
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Bithynia and Pontus as a province of the Roman empire

30.
Black Sea
–
The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea

31.
Crimean Peninsula
–
The peninsula is located south of the Ukrainian region of Kherson and west of the Russian region of Kuban. It is connected to Kherson Oblast by the Isthmus of Perekop and is separated from Kuban by the Strait of Kerch, the Arabat Spit is located to the northeast, a narrow strip of land that separates a system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of Azov. Crimea has historically been at the boundary between the world and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Crimea and adjacent territories were united in the Crimean Khanate during the 15th to 18th century, in 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. It became the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within newly independent Ukraine in 1991, with Sevastopol having its own administration, within Ukraine, since 1997, after the Peace and Friendship Treaty signed by Russia and Ukraine, Crimea hosts the Russian Black Sea Fleet naval base in Sevastopol. The ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet and its facilities were divided between Russias Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian Naval Forces, the two navies shared some of the citys harbours and piers, while others were demilitarised or used by either country. Sevastopol remained the location of the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters with the Ukrainian Naval Forces Headquarters also based in the city, most of the international community does not recognize the annexation and considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory. Russia currently administers the peninsula as two federal subjects, the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. Ukraine continues to assert its right over the peninsula, the classical name Tauris or Taurica is from the Greek Ταυρική, after the peninsulas Scytho-Cimmerian inhabitants, the Tauri. In English usage since the modern period the Crimean Khanate is referred to as Crim Tartary. The Italian form Crimea also becomes current during the 18th century, the omission of the definite article in English became common during the later 20th century. The name Crimea follows the Italian form from the Crimean Tatar name for the city Qırım which served as a capital of the Crimean province of the Golden Horde, the name of the capital was extended to the entire peninsula at some point during Ottoman suzerainty. The origin of the word Qırım is uncertain, suggestions argued in various sources include, a corruption of Cimmerium. A derivation from the Turkic term qirum, from qori-, other suggestions that have not been supported by sources but are apparently based on similarity in sound include, a derivation from the Greek Cremnoi. However, he identifies the port, not in Crimea, no evidence has been identified that this name was ever in use for the peninsula. The classical name was revived in 1802 in the name of the Russian Taurida Governorate, in the 8th century BCE the Cimmerians migrated to the region and subsequently the Scythians as well it being the site of Greek colonies. The most important city was Chersonesos at the edge of todays Sevastopol, the Persian Achaemenid Empire expanded to Crimea. Later occupiers included the Romans, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, the Byzantine Empire, Khazars, the Kipchaks, the Golden Horde, consideration of the succeeding residents of the peninsula by their linguistic grouping is also of relevance

32.
Baldwin I of Constantinople
–
He lost his final battle to Kaloyan, the emperor of Bulgaria, and spent his last days as his prisoner. Baldwin was the son of Baldwin V of Hainaut and Margaret I, when the childless Philip of Alsace left on the last of his personal crusades in 1177, he designated his brother-in-law Baldwin V his heir. One year later, Philip of Alsace had his protégé married to his niece, Isabelle of Hainaut, offering the County of Artois and other Flemish territories as dowry, much to the dismay of Baldwin V. Count Philips wife Elisabeth died in 1183, and Philip Augustus seized the province of Vermandois on behalf of Elisabeths sister, Philip then remarried, to Matilda of Portugal. Philip gave Matilda a dower of a number of major Flemish towns, when Countess Margaret I died in 1194, Flanders descended to her eldest son Baldwin, who ruled as Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders. In 1186, the younger Baldwin had married Marie of Champagne, daughter of Count Henry I of Champagne, the chronicler Gislebert describes Baldwin as being infatuated with his young bride, who nevertheless preferred prayer to the marital bed. Immediately after this arrangement, the count of Hainauts son Baldwin, thirteen years old, received as wife Marie and this Marie began sufficiently young to devote herself to divine obedience in prayers, vigils, fasts and alms. The solemn rejoicing of the wedding was celebrated at Valenciennes with an abundance of knights and ladies, through Marie, Baldwin had additional connections and obligations to the defenders of the Holy Land, her brother Henry II of Champagne had been King of Jerusalem in the 1190s. Maries uncles Richard I of England and Philip II of France had just been on the Third Crusade, Baldwins own family had also been involved in the defence of Jerusalem, his uncle Philip had died on Crusade. Baldwins maternal grandmother was great-aunt of Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem, Baldwin wanted to continue the tradition. Margaret died in 1194, and the younger Baldwin became Count of Flanders and his father died the next year, and he succeeded to Hainaut. Isabelle had died in 1190, but King Philip still retained her dowry, on behalf of Isabelles son, the eight years of Baldwins rule in Flanders were dominated by his attempts to recover some of this land. After Philip II of France took Baldwins brother, Philippe of Namur, prisoner, the Treaty of Péronne was signed in January 1200 on the condition that Baldwin receive the territories he had won during the war. Baldwin was made the vassal of Philip II, and the king returned portions of Artois to Baldwin. In this fight against the French king, Baldwin allied with others who had quarrels with Philip, including kings Richard I and John of England, and the German King Otto IV. A month after the treaty, on Ash Wednesday 1200 in the town of Bruges, Baldwin took the cross and he spent the next two years preparing, finally leaving on 14 April 1202. As part of his effort to leave his domains in good order, one detailed an extensive criminal code, and appears to be based on a now-lost charter of his father. The other laid down rules for inheritance

Baldwin I of Constantinople
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Seal of Baldwin I
Baldwin I of Constantinople
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County of Flanders, AR maille or 'petit denier', struck in Ypres under Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders
Baldwin I of Constantinople
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Baldwin's Tower in the Tsarevets castle, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

33.
Latin Empire
–
It was established after the capture of Constantinople in 1204 and lasted until 1261. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, was crowned the first Latin emperor as Baldwin I on 16 May 1204, the last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, went into exile, but the imperial title survived, with several pretenders to it, until the 14th century. The original name of state in the Latin language was Imperium Romaniae. This name was used based on the fact that the name for the Eastern Roman Empire in this period had been Romania. The names Byzantine and Latin were not contemporaneous terms, the term Latin has been used because the crusaders were Roman Catholic and used Latin as their liturgical and scholarly language. It is used in contrast to the Eastern Orthodox locals who used Greek in both liturgy and common speech, after the fall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, the crusaders agreed to divide up Byzantine territory. In the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae, signed on 1 October 1204, none of these polities actually controlled the city of Rome, which remained under the temporal authority of the Pope. The initial campaigns of the crusaders in Asia Minor resulted in the capture of most of Bithynia by 1205, with the defeat of the forces of Theodore I Laskaris at Poemanenum and Prusa. Latin successes continued, and in 1207 a truce was signed with Theodore, the Latins inflicted a further defeat on Nicaean forces at the Rhyndakos river in October 1211, and three years later the Treaty of Nymphaeum recognized their control of most of Bithynia and Mysia. The peace was maintained until 1222, when the resurgent power of Nicaea felt sufficiently strong to challenge the Latin Empire, Nicaea turned also to the Aegean, capturing the islands awarded to the empire. In 1235, finally, the last Latin possessions fell to Nicaea, unlike in Asia, where the Latin Empire faced only an initially weak Nicaea, in Europe it was immediately confronted with a powerful enemy, the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan. When Baldwin campaigned against the Byzantine lords of Thrace, they called upon Kaloyan for help, at the Battle of Adrianople on 14 April 1205, the Latin heavy cavalry and knights were crushed by Kaloyans troops and Cuman allies, and Emperor Baldwin was captured. He was imprisoned in the Bulgarian capital Tarnovo until his later in 1205. At the same time, another Greek successor state, the Despotate of Epirus, under Michael I Komnenos Doukas, posed a threat to the vassals in Thessalonica. Henry demanded his submission, which Michael provided, giving off his daughter to Henrys brother Eustace in the summer of 1209 and this alliance allowed Henry to launch a campaign in Macedonia, Thessaly and Central Greece against the rebellious Lombard lords of Thessalonica. However, Michaels attack on the Kingdom of Thessalonica in 1210 forced him to north to relieve the city. In 1214 however, Michael died, and was succeeded by Theodore Komnenos Doukas, on 11 June 1216, while supervising repairs to the walls of Thessalonica, Henry died, and was succeeded by Peter of Courtenay, who himself was captured and executed by Theodore the following year. A regency was set up in Constantinople, headed by Peters widow, Yolanda of Flanders, epirote armies then conquered Thrace in 1225–26, appearing before Constantinople itself

Latin Empire
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Capture of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
Latin Empire
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The Latin Empire with its vassals (in yellow) and the Greek successor states of the Byzantine Empire (in red) after the Treaty of Nymphaeum in 1214. The borders are very uncertain.

34.
Philip II of France
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Philip II, known as Philip Augustus, was King of France from 1180 to 1223, a member of the House of Capet. Philips predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philip became the first French monarch to style himself king of France. The son of King Louis VII and his wife, Adèle of Champagne, he was originally nicknamed Dieudonné God-given because he was the first son of Louis VII. Philip was given the nickname Augustus by the chronicler Rigord for having extended the Crown lands of France so remarkably, the military actions surrounding the Albigensian Crusade helped prepare the expansion of France southward. Philip did not participate directly in these actions, but he allowed his vassals, Philip transformed France from a small feudal state into the most prosperous and powerful country in Europe. He checked the power of the nobles and helped the towns to free themselves from seigniorial authority and he built a great wall around Paris, re-organized the French government and brought financial stability to his country. Philip was born in Gonesse on 21 August 1165 and he spent much of the following night attempting to find his way out, but to no avail. Exhausted by cold, hunger and fatigue, he was discovered by a peasant carrying a charcoal burner. His father went on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas Becket to pray for Philips recovery and was told that his son had indeed recovered, however, on his way back to Paris, he suffered a stroke. In declining health, Louis VII had his 14-year-old son crowned and anointed as king at Rheims on 1 November 1179 by the Archbishop Guillaume aux Blanches Mains. He was married on 28 April 1180 to Isabelle of Hainaut, the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut, and Margaret I, Countess of Flanders, who brought the County of Artois as her dowry. From the time of his coronation, all power was transferred to Philip. Eventually, Louis died on 18 September 1180, while the royal demesne had increased under Philip I and Louis VI, it had diminished slightly under Louis VII. In April 1182, partially to enrich the French crown, Philip expelled all Jews from the demesne, Philips eldest son Louis was born on 5 September 1187 and inherited the County of Artois in 1190, when his mother Isabelle died. The main source of funding for Philips army was from the royal demesne, in times of conflict, he could immediately call up 250 knights,250 horse sergeants,100 mounted crossbowmen,133 crossbowmen on foot,2,000 foot sergeants, and 300 mercenaries. Towards the end of his reign, the king could muster some 3,000 knights,9,000 sergeants,6,000 urban militiamen, using his increased revenues, Philip was the first Capetian king to build a French navy actively. By 1215, his fleet could carry a total of 7,000 men, within two years, his fleet included 10 large ships and many smaller ones. In 1181, Philip began a war with Philip, Count of Flanders, over the Vermandois, which King Philip claimed as his wifes dowry, finally the Count of Flanders invaded France, ravaging the whole district between the Somme and the Oise before penetrating as far as Dammartin

Philip II of France
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Seal of Philip II
Philip II of France
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Isabelle, Philip's first wife.
Philip II of France
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The coronation of Philip II Augustus in the presence of Henry II of England
Philip II of France
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Remains of the Wall of Philip II Augustus built around Paris before he went to the Crusades. The segment pictured here is found in the Rue des Jardins-Saint-Paul, Paris

35.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens

36.
Fourth Crusade
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The Fourth Crusade was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, a sequence of events culminated in the Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the intention of the crusaders was then to continue to the Holy Land with promised Byzantine financial and military assistance. On 23 June 1203 the main fleet reached Constantinople. In August 1203, following clashes outside Constantinople, Alexios Angelos was crowned co-Emperor with crusader support, however, in January 1204, he was deposed by a popular uprising in Constantinople. In April 1204, they captured and brutally sacked the city, Byzantine resistance based in unconquered sections of the empire such as Nicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus ultimately recovered Constantinople in 1261. Ayyubid Sultan Saladin had conquered most of the Frankish, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the ancient city itself, the Kingdom had been established 88 years before, after the capture and sack of Jerusalem in the First Crusade. The city was sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews, Saladin led a Muslim dynasty, and his incorporation of Jerusalem into his domains shocked and dismayed the Catholic countries of Western Europe. Legend has it that Pope Urban III literally died of the shock, the crusader states had been reduced to three cities along the sea coast, Tyre, Tripoli, and Antioch. The Third Crusade reclaimed an extensive amount of territory for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the key towns of Acre and Jaffa, but had failed to retake Jerusalem. The crusade had also marked by a significant escalation in long standing tensions between the feudal states of western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, centred in Constantinople. The experiences of the first two crusades had thrown into relief the vast cultural differences between the two Christian civilisations. For their part, the educated and wealthy Byzantines maintained a sense of cultural, organizational. Constantinople had been in existence for 874 years at the time of the Fourth Crusade and was the largest and most sophisticated city in Christendom. Almost alone amongst major medieval urban centres, it had retained the civic structures, public baths, forums, monuments, at its height, the city held an estimated population of about half a million people behind thirteen miles of triple walls. As a result, it was both a rival and a target for the aggressive new states of the west, notably the Republic of Venice. Crusaders also seized the breakaway Byzantine province of Cyprus, rather than return it to the Empire, barbarossa died on crusade, and his army quickly disintegrated, leaving the English and French, who had come by sea, to fight Saladin. There they captured Sidon and Beirut, but at the news of Henrys death in Messina along the way, many of the nobles, deserted by much of their leadership, the rank and file crusaders panicked before an Egyptian army and fled to their ships in Tyre. Also in 1195, the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos was deposed in favour of his brother by a palace coup, ascending as Alexios III Angelos, the new emperor had his brother blinded and exiled

Fourth Crusade
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Conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204
Fourth Crusade
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The Crusader attack on Constantinople, from a Venetian manuscript of Geoffreoy de Villehardouin's history, ca. 1330
Fourth Crusade
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Capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204
Fourth Crusade
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The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (Eugène Delacroix, 1840). The most infamous action of the Fourth Crusade was the sack of the Orthodox Christian city of Constantinople

37.
Henry of Flanders
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Henry was the second emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. He was a son of Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut. Having joined the Fourth Crusade in about 1201, he distinguished himself at the sieges of Constantinople and he soon became prominent among the princes of the new Latin Empire. He was crowned 20 August 1206, upon Henrys ascension as Latin Emperor, the Lombard nobles of the Kingdom of Thessalonica refused to give him allegiance. A two-year war ensued and after defeating the Templar-supported Lombards, Henry confiscated the Templar castles of Ravennika and Zetouni (Lamia. Henry was a ruler, whose reign was largely passed in successful struggles with Kaloyan, Tsar of Bulgaria. He later fought against Boril of Bulgaria and managed to defeat him in the Battle of Philippopolis, Henry campaigned against the Nicean Empire, expanding a small holding in Asia Minor with campaigns in 1207 and in 1211–1212, where he captured important Nicean possessions at Nymphaion. Domestically, Henry appears to have a different character than many of the other Crusader nobles as seen in his even-handed and pragmatic treatment of the Greeks. Henry appears to have been brave but not cruel, and tolerant but not weak, possessing the superior courage to oppose, in a superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. The emperor died, poisoned, it is said, by Oberto II of Biandrate, ex-regent of Thessaloniki, gardner suggests this happened at the instigation of his wife, Maria of Bulgaria. On his death his brother-in-law Peter Courtenay was crowned emperor in Rome, in the years 1217 to 1219, therefore, the Latin Empire was effectively ruled by Yolanda, Henrys sister and Peters wife, in regency. The last two Latin emperors were Peter and Yolandas sons, Robert and Baldwin, Henry first married Agnes of Montferrat, daughter of Boniface of Montferrat, the Crusade leader, but she had died before her fathers death in 1207. Henry had a daughter with an unnamed mistress and this daughter, whose name is not recorded, later married Alexii Slav who established his own state in the Rodophe mountains. He was later given the title of despot, the Latin and Greek Churches in former Byzantine Lands under Latin Rule. The Late Medieval Balkans, A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, the Lascarids of Nicæa, The Story of an Empire in Exile. Translated by Shaw, M. R. B, the Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. Sturdza, M. D. Dictionnaire Historique et Généalogique des Grandes Familles de Grèce, dAlbanie et de Constantinople

38.
Henry I of France
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Henry I was King of the Franks from 1031 to his death. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign and this is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy. A member of the House of Capet, Henry was born in Reims and he was crowned King of France at the Cathedral in Reims on 14 May 1027, in the Capetian tradition, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his fathers death, the reign of Henry I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his brother Robert, with the support of their mother and his mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling. In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy which his father had him in 1016. In an early strategic move, Henry came to the rescue of his very young nephew-in-law, in 1051, William married Matilda, the daughter of the count of Flanders, which Henry saw as a threat to his throne. In 1054, and again in 1057, Henry invaded Normandy, Henry had three meetings with Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor—all at Ivois. In early 1043, he met him to discuss the marriage of the emperor with Agnes of Poitou, in October 1048, the two Henries met again and signed a treaty of friendship. The final meeting place in May 1056 and concerned disputes over Theobald III. The debate over the duchy became so heated that Henry accused the emperor of breach of contract, in 1058, Henry was selling bishoprics and abbacies, ignoring the accusations of simony and tyranny by the Papal legate Cardinal Humbert. Despite his efforts, Henry Is twenty-nine-year reign saw feudal power in France reach its pinnacle, King Henry I died on 4 August 1060 in Vitry-en-Brie, France, and was interred in Basilica of St Denis. He was succeeded by his son, Philip I of France, at the time of his death, he was besieging Thimert, which had been occupied by the Normans since 1058. He was also Duke of Burgundy from 1016 to 1032, when he abdicated the duchy to his brother Robert, Henry I was betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, but she died prematurely in 1034. Henry then married Matilda of Frisia, but she died in 1044, casting further afield in search of a third wife, Henry married Anne of Kiev on 19 May 1051. They had four children, Philip I, vajay, S. Mathilde, reine de France inconnue,1971

Henry I of France
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A depiction of Henry from Chroniques de France ou de St Denis

39.
Philip I of France
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Philip I, called the Amorous, was King of the Franks from 1060 to his death. His reign, like that of most of the early Capetians, was long for the time. The monarchy began a modest recovery from the low it reached in the reign of his father and he added to the royal demesne the Vexin, Philip was born 23 May 1052 at Champagne-et-Fontaine, the son of Henry I and his wife Anne of Kiev. Unusual at the time for Western Europe, his name was of Greek origin, although he was crowned king at the age of seven, until age fourteen his mother acted as regent, the first queen of France ever to do so. Baldwin V of Flanders also acted as co-regent, following the death of Baldwin VI of Flanders, Robert the Frisian seized Flanders. Baldwins wife, Richilda requested aid from Philip, who defeated Robert at the battle of Cassel in 1071, Philip first married Bertha in 1072. Although the marriage produced the heir, Philip fell in love with Bertrade de Montfort. He repudiated Bertha and married Bertrade on 15 May 1092, in 1094, he was excommunicated by Hugh of Die, for the first time, after a long silence, Pope Urban II repeated the excommunication at the Council of Clermont in November 1095. In France, the king was opposed by Bishop Ivo of Chartres, Philip appointed Alberic first Constable of France in 1060. A great part of his reign, like his fathers, was spent putting down revolts by his power-hungry vassals, in 1077, he made peace with William the Conqueror, who gave up attempting the conquest of Brittany. In 1082, Philip I expanded his demesne with the annexation of the Vexin, then in 1100, he took control of Bourges. It was at the aforementioned Council of Clermont that the First Crusade was launched, Philip at first did not personally support it because of his conflict with Urban II. Philips brother Hugh of Vermandois, however, was a major participant, Philip died in the castle of Melun and was buried per request at the monastery of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire – and not in St Denis among his forefathers. He was succeeded by his son, Louis VI, whose succession was, however, according to Abbot Suger, Philip‘s children with Bertha were, Constance, married Hugh I of Champagne before 1097 and then, after her divorce, to Bohemund I of Antioch in 1106

Philip I of France
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Philip's tomb effigy in Fleury Abbey
Philip I of France
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2nd type denier during Philip I

40.
Anne of Kiev
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Anne of Kiev, Anna Yaroslavna, Anna of Rus also called Agnes, was the queen consort of Henry I of France, and regent of France during the minority of her son, Philip I of France, from 1060 until 1065. Anne founded St. Vincent Abbey in Senlis, Anne was born between 1024 and 1032. Her parents were Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev and Novgorod, there is not much information about her childhood, but she was evidently given a careful education, and could read and write, which was rare even among royal princesses at the time. In 1043–44, Anne was suggested to marry Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1049, the King of France sent an embassy to distant Kiev, which returned with Anne. But she did bring wealth to the match, including a jacinth which Suger later mounted in the reliquary of St Denis, Anne and Henry I were married at the cathedral of Reims on 19 May 1051. Immediately after the ceremony, she was crowned queen of France and she became the first French queen to be crowned at Reims. Only one year after the marriage, Anne fulfilled her task by giving birth to an heir to the throne, Anne came to play an important personal role as queen of France. As queen, it was her role to act as the manager of the court and household, supervise the upbringing of the royal children. But she also came to play a political role, Queen Anne could ride a horse, was knowledgeable in politics, and actively participated in governing France. She accompanied Henry I on his travels around France. Many French documents bear her signature, written in old Slavic language, Henry I respected Anna so much that his many decrees bear the inscription With the consent of my wife Anna and In the presence of Queen Anna. French historians point out there are no other cases in the French history. On 4 August 1060, Henry I died and was succeeded by her son Philip I, by that time eight years old. During his minority, Anne, as a member of the council, acted as Regent of France. She was the first queen of France to serve as regent, Anne was a literate woman, rare for the time, but there was some opposition to her as regent on the grounds that her mastery of French was less than fluent. In 1061, the Regent Anne reportedly took a fancy for Count Ralph IV of Valois. The traditional story describe how Ralph IV organized an abduction of Anne when she was hunting in the hunting grounds in Senlis and brought her to Crépy-en-Valois. Accused of adultery, Ralph IVs wife Eleanor de Montdidier appealed to Pope Alexander II, the Popes investigation resulted in the marriage between Anne and Ralph IV to be declared invalid and Ralph IV to be excommunicated in 1064

41.
Louis VI of France
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Louis VI, called the Fat, was King of the Franks from 1108 until his death. Chronicles called him roi de Saint-Denis, nonetheless, Louis VI managed to reinforce his power considerably and became one of the first strong kings of France since the division of the Carolingian Empire in 843. Louis was a king but by his forties his weight had become so great that it was increasingly difficult for him to lead in the field. Louis was born on 1 December 1081 in Paris, the son of Philip I and his first wife, and. How valiant he was in youth, and with what energy he repelled the king of the English, William Rufus, when he attacked Louis inherited kingdom. Louis married Lucienne de Rochefort, a French crown princess, in 1104, on 3 August 1115 Louis married Adelaide of Maurienne, daughter of Humbert II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy, and niece of Pope Callixtus II. Adelaide was one of the most politically active of all Frances medieval queens and her name appears on 45 royal charters from the reign of Louis VI. During her tenure as queen, royal charters were dated with both her regnal year and that of the king, suger became Louiss adviser before he became king and he succeeded his father at the age of 26 on 29 July 1108. Louiss half-brother prevented him from reaching Rheims, and so Daimbert, Archbishop of Sens, ralph the Green, Archbishop of Rheims, sent envoys to challenge the validity of the coronation and anointing, but to no avail. When Louis ascended the throne the Kingdom of France was a collection of feudal principalities, beyond the Isle de France the French Kings had little authority over the great Dukes and Counts of the realm but slowly Louis began to change this and assert Capetian rights. This process would take two centuries to complete but began in the reign of Louis VI, the second great challenge facing Louis was to counter the rising power of the Anglo-Normans under their capable new King, Henry I of England. From early in his reign Louis faced the problem of the barons who resisted the Kings authority and engaged in brigandry. In 1108, soon after he ascended the throne, Louis engaged in war with Hugh of Crecy, who was plaguing the countryside and had captured Eudes, Count of Corbeil, Louis besieged that fortress to free Eudes. In early 1109, Louis besieged his half-brother, Philip, the son of Bertrade de Montfort, philips plots included the lords of Montfort-lAmaury. Amaury III of Montfort held many castles which, when linked together, in 1108-1109 a seigneur named Aymon Vaire-Vache seized the lordship of Bourbon from his nephew, Archambaud, a minor. Louis demanded the boy be restored to his rights but Aymon refused the summons, Louis raised his army and besieged Aymon at his castle at Germigny-sur-lAubois, forcing its surrender and enforcing the rights of Archambaud. In 1122, Aimeri, Bishop of Clermont, appealed to Louis after William VI, Count of Auvergne, had driven him from his episcopal town. When William refused Louis summons, Louis raised an army at Bourges, and marched into Auvergne, supported by some of his vassals, such as the Counts of Anjou, Brittany. Louis seized the fortress of Pont-du-Chateau on the Allier, then attacked Clermont, four years later William rebelled again and Louis, though his increasing weight made campaigning difficult, marched again

42.
Floris I, Count of Holland
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Floris I of Holland was Count of Holland, then called Frisia west of the Vlie, from 1049 to 1061. He was a son of Dirk III and Othelindis and he succeeded his brother Dirk IV, Count of Holland, who was murdered in 1049. He was involved in a war of a few Lotharingian vassals against the imperial authority, on a retreat from Zaltbommel he was ambushed and killed in battle at Nederhemert, on 28 June 1061. Gertrude married secondly in 1063 Robert the Frisian, Count of Flanders, who also acted as guardian for the children of her previous marriage and as regent for his stepson until 1071

Floris I, Count of Holland
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Floris I as imagined in the 16th century

43.
Bertha of Holland
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Bertha of Holland, also known as Berthe or Bertha of Frisia and erroneously as Berta or Bertrada, was queen consort of the Franks from 1072 until 1092, as the first wife of King Philip I. Berthas marriage to the king in 1072 was a result of negotiations between him and her stepfather, Count Robert the Frisian of Flanders. After nine years of childlessness, the couple had three children, including Philips successor, Louis the Fat. Philip, however, grew tired of his wife by 1090 and that marriage was a scandal since both Philip and Bertrada were already married to other people, at least until Queen Bertha died the next year. Bertha was the daughter of Count Floris I of Holland and his wife and she is erroneously referred to as Matilda by Chronologia Johannes de Beke. Bertha had six siblings and both of her parents came from large families and her father ruled a territory vaguely described as Friesland west of the Vlie, which is where Bertha spent her childhood. Count Floris I was assassinated in 1061, and two years later her mother remarried to Robert of Flanders, Robert, now known as Robert the Frisian, became guardian of Bertha and her six siblings. In 1070, Robert the Frisian became involved in a war with King Philip I of France over succession to the County of Flanders. Within two years, Robert and Philip concluded a treaty which was to be sealed by a marriage, Roberts own daughters were too young. Robert thus agreed to the marriage of his stepdaughter to King Philip, Bertha married Philip, thus becoming queen of the Franks, probably in 1072. Bertha had no kings among her ancestors and lacked even tenuous links with the Carolingian that her predecessors could claim. Consequently, contemporary chroniclers did not even try to present her lineage as more exalted than that of a counts daughter, nevertheless, the shortage of royal candidates made Bertha a suitable choice. Little is known about Berthas queenship and she co-signed only three donation charters. However, she plays a prominent role in the hagiography titled Vita Arnulfi, the hagiography describes how she used her regal power to expel Abbot Gerard of Saint-Médard and reinstate the former abbot, Pontius, who had been removed due to his mismanagement of the abbey. Saint Arnulf of Soissons warned her that doing so would incur the wrath of God and lead to her being out of the kingdom into exile. The queen furiously refused to listen to him, the hagiography, however, was written after Bertha died and during Bertradas queenship, which might explain the name confusion. For six years, King Philip and Queen Bertha were troubled by their childlessness and especially by the lack of male children, the birth of the long-awaited heir apparent had such a great impact that a story of a miracle developed around it. Reportedly, the couples fertility was only restored thanks to the prayers of a hermit, Arnulf informed Queen Bertha that she was expecting a son and that it would be appropriate to give him the Carolingian name of Louis

Bertha of Holland
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Bertha of Holland
Bertha of Holland
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Bertha of Holland marrying King Philip I
Bertha of Holland
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Queen Bertha and King Philip with their children
Bertha of Holland
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King Philip marries Countess Bertrada, with Count Fulk protesting and Queen Bertha imprisoned in a castle

44.
Gertrude of Saxony
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Gertrude of Saxony, also known as Gertrude Billung, was a countess consort of Holland, and a countess consort of Flanders by marriage. She was regent of Holland during the minority of her son and she was the daughter of Bernard II, Duke of Saxony and Eilika of Schweinfurt. She married Floris I, Count of Holland c,1050, and upon his death, her son Dirk V became Count of Holland. Since he was young, she became regent. When Dirk V came into power, William I, Bishop of Utrecht, took advantage of the situation, Gertrude and her son withdrew to the islands of Frisia, leaving William to occupy the disputed lands. In 1063 Gertrude married Robert of Flanders, the son of Baldwin V of Flanders. This act gave Dirk the Imperial Flanders as an appanage – including the islands of Frisia west of the Frisian Scheldt and she and her husband then acted as co-regents for the young count. She had a total of seven children with Floris I, Albert, Dirk V. Peter, a canon in Liége. Bertha, who married Philip I of France in 1072, matilda Adela, who married Count Baudouin I of Guînes. From her second marriage to Robert I she had five children, Adela, who first married king Canute IV of Denmark, and was the mother of Charles the Good, later count of Flanders. She then married Roger Borsa, duke of Apulia, Gertrude, who married Theodoric II, Duke of Lorraine, and was the mother of Thierry of Alsace, also later count of Flanders. Philip of Loo, whose illegitimate son William of Ypres was also a claimant to the county of Flanders, genealogy A-Z Medieval Lands Project on Gertrude of Saxony

Gertrude of Saxony
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Gertrude of Saxony

45.
Adelaide of Maurienne
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Adelaide of Savoy was the second spouse but first Queen consort of Louis VI of France. Adelaide was the daughter of Humbert II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy, and niece of Pope Callixtus II and she became the second wife of Louis VI of France, whom she married on 3 August 1113/14 in Paris, France. They had eight children, the second of whom became Louis VII of France, adelaide was one of the most politically active of all Frances medieval queens. Her name appears on 45 royal charters from the reign of Louis VI, during her tenure as queen, royal charters were dated with both her regnal year and that of the king. Among many other religious benefactions, she and Louis founded the monastery of St Peters at Montmartre, after Louis VIs death, Adélaide did not immediately retire to conventual life, as did most widowed queens of the time. Instead she married Matthieu I of Montmorency, with whom she had one child and she remained active in the French court and in religious activities. Adélaide is one of two queens in a legend related by William Dugdale, as the story goes, Queen Adélaide of France became enamoured of a young knight, William dAlbini, at a joust. But he was engaged to Adeliza of Louvain and refused to become her lover. The jealous Adélaide lured him into the clutches of a hungry lion and this story is almost without a doubt apocryphal. In 1153 she retired to the abbey of Montmartre, which she had founded with Louis VII and she died there on 18 November 1154. She was buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Pierre at Montmartre, not to be confused with his elder brother. Peter, married Elizabeth, Lady of Courtenay Nolan, Kathleen D. Capetian Women Facinger, a Study of Medieval Queenship, Capetian France, 987–1237 Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 5 (1968, 3–48

Adelaide of Maurienne
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Adelaide of Maurienne

46.
William I, Count of Burgundy
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William I, called the Great, was Count of Burgundy from 1057 to 1087 and Mâcon from 1078 to 1087. He was a son of Renaud I and Alice of Normandy, daughter of Richard II, william was the father of several notable children, including Pope Callixtus II. In 1057, he succeeded his father and reigned over a larger than that of the Franche-Comté itself. In 1087, he died in Besançon, Prince-Archbishopric of Besançon and he was buried in Besançons Cathedral of St John. William married a woman named Stephanie and she married secondly Godfrey I, Count of Leuven and was possibly the mother of Joscelin of Louvain

47.
Stephen II, Count of Blois
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Stephen II Henry, Count of Blois and Count of Chartres, was the son of Theobald III, count of Blois, and Garsinde du Maine. He is numbered Stephen II after Stephen I, Count of Troyes, in 1089, upon the death of his father, he became the Count of Blois and Chartres, although Theobald had given him the administration of those holdings in 1074. He was the father of Stephen of England, Stephen was the head of the army council at the Crusaders siege of Nicaea in 1097. He returned home in 1098 during the siege of Antioch, fleeing the battlefield. He was pressured by Adela into making a pilgrimage. In 1102, Stephen was killed at the Second Battle of Ramla at the age of fifty-seven, Stephen married Adela of Normandy, a daughter of William the Conqueror around 1080 in Chartres. He fathered Adelas children, William, Count of Sully Theobald II, Count of Champagne Odo, both drowned on 25 November 1120 in the White Ship disaster. Agnes, married Hugh III of Le Puiset Eleanor married Raoul I of Vermandois and had issue, davis, R. H. C. King Stephen 1135–1154, Third Edition London, Longman 1990 ISBN 0-582-04000-0

Stephen II, Count of Blois
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Seal of Stephen II

48.
Theobald II, Count of Champagne
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Theobald the Great was Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV from 1102 and was Count of Champagne and of Brie as Theobald II from 1125. He held Auxerre, Maligny, Ervy, Troyes, and Châteauvillain as fiefs from Odo II and he was the son of Stephen II, Count of Blois, and Adela of Normandy, and the elder brother of King Stephen of England. Although he was the son, Theobald was appointed above his older brother William. Several historians have painted William as mentally deficient, but this has never been substantiated, however, we know that his mother found him stubbornly resistant to control and unfit for wide ranging comital duties. Theobald accompanied his mother throughout their realm on hundreds of occasions and, after her retirement to Marcigney in 1125, Adela died in her beloved convent in 1136, the year after her son Stephen was crowned king of England. The scholastic Pierre Abélard, famous for his affair with and subsequent marriage to his student Héloïse. Abelard died at Cluny Abbey in Burgundy, a monastery supported by the Thebaudians for many centuries, in 1123 he married Matilda of Carinthia, daughter of Engelbert, Duke of Carinthia. Their children were, Henry I of Champagne Theobald V of Blois, seneschal of France Adèle of Champagne, married King Louis VII of France Isabelle of Champagne, roger of Apulia d.1148 &2. William Gouet IV d.1170 Marie of Champagne, married Eudes II, Duke of Burgundy, margaret of Champagne, nun at Fontevrault Matilda, wife of Rotrou IV, Count of Perche Thibaut had an illegitimate son, Hugh, abbot of Lagny near Paris Peace with honor

Theobald II, Count of Champagne
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Theobald II, Count of Champagne

49.
William the Conqueror
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William I, usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward, after a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England six years later. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands, William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy, by Roberts mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, during his childhood and adolescence, members of the Norman aristocracy battled each other, both for control of the child duke and for their own ends. In 1047 William was able to quash a rebellion and begin to establish his authority over the duchy and his marriage in the 1050s to Matilda of Flanders provided him with a powerful ally in the neighbouring county of Flanders. By the time of his marriage, William was able to arrange the appointments of his supporters as bishops and his consolidation of power allowed him to expand his horizons, and by 1062 William was able to secure control of the neighbouring county of Maine. In the 1050s and early 1060s William became a contender for the throne of England, then held by the childless Edward the Confessor, his first cousin once removed. There were other claimants, including the powerful English earl Harold Godwinson. William argued that Edward had previously promised the throne to him, William built a large fleet and invaded England in September 1066, decisively defeating and killing Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. After further military efforts William was crowned king on Christmas Day 1066 and he made arrangements for the governance of England in early 1067 before returning to Normandy. Several unsuccessful rebellions followed, but by 1075 Williams hold on England was mostly secure, Williams final years were marked by difficulties in his continental domains, troubles with his eldest son, and threatened invasions of England by the Danes. In 1086 William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a listing all the landholders in England along with their holdings. William died in September 1087 while leading a campaign in northern France and his reign in England was marked by the construction of castles, the settling of a new Norman nobility on the land, and change in the composition of the English clergy. He did not try to integrate his various domains into one empire, Williams lands were divided after his death, Normandy went to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, and his second surviving son, William Rufus, received England. Norsemen first began raiding in what became Normandy in the late 8th century, permanent Scandinavian settlement occurred before 911, when Rollo, one of the Viking leaders, and King Charles the Simple of France reached an agreement surrendering the county of Rouen to Rollo. The lands around Rouen became the core of the duchy of Normandy. Normandy may have used as a base when Scandinavian attacks on England were renewed at the end of the 10th century. In an effort to improve matters, King Æthelred the Unready took Emma of Normandy, sister of Duke Richard II, as his second wife in 1002

William the Conqueror
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William as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry during the Battle of Hastings, lifting his helm to show that he is still alive
William the Conqueror
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Château de Falaise in Falaise, Lower Normandy, France; William was born in an earlier building here.
William the Conqueror
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Column at the site of the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes
William the Conqueror
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Image from the Bayeux Tapestry showing William with his half-brothers. William is in the centre, Odo is on the left with empty hands, and Robert is on the right with a sword in his hand.

50.
Adela of Normandy
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Adela of Normandy, of Blois, or of England, also known as Saint Adela in Roman Catholicism, was, by marriage, Countess of Blois, Chartres, and Meaux. She was a daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders and she was also the mother of Stephen, King of England and Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester. Her birthdate is generally believed to be between 1066 and 1070, after her fathers accession to the English throne in 1066 and she was the favourite sister of King Henry I of England, they were probably the youngest of the Conquerors children. Adela was a high-spirited and educated woman, with a knowledge of Latin and she married Stephen Henry, son and heir to the count of Blois, between 1080 and 1083, around her fifteenth birthday. Stephen was nearly twenty years her senior, Stephen inherited Blois, Chartres and Meaux upon his fathers death in 1089, as well as lands and right in parts of Berry and Burgundy. Stephen-Henry joined the First Crusade in 1096, along with his brother-in-law Robert Curthose, Stephens letters to Adela form a uniquely intimate insight into the experiences of the Crusades leaders and show that he trusted Adela to rule as regent while he was on crusade. The Count of Blois returned to France in 1100 bringing with him several cartloads of maps, jewels and other treasures and he was, however, under an obligation to the pope for agreements made years earlier and returned to Antioch to participate in the crusade of 1101. He was ultimately killed in a charge at the Battle of Ramla in 1102. Adela and Stephens children are listed here in probable birth order, William, Count of Sully married Agnes of Sully and had issue Theobald II, aka Thibaud IV Count of Champagne Odo of Blois, aka Humbert. Died young Adela, married Milo II of Montlhéry King Stephen of England, married Matilda of Boulogne Lucia-Mahaut, married Richard dAvranches, both drowned on 25 November 1120 in the White Ship disaster. It is known that Adela had five sons and may have had three or more daughters, though not all of the daughters were necessarily Adelas biological children. The daughters are not mentioned by name during their youth, only appearing when they reach marriageable age, Adela, a devout Benedictine sympathizer, employed several high-ranking tutors to educate her children. Her youngest son, Henry, was conceived during the single year Stephen was in France between crusading duties. At two years of age Henry was pledged to the Church at Cluny Abbey, Saône-et-Loire, France, as an oblate child, Henry went on to be appointed Abbot of Glastonbury and Bishop of Winchester. In that capacity he sponsored hundreds of constructions including bridges, canals, palaces, forts, castles, in addition, Bishop Henry built dozens of abbeys and chapels and sponsored books including the treasured Winchester Bible. Adela quarrelled with her eldest son William and despite his previously being named heir-designate and her son Stephen moved to London in 1111 to join his uncles court and became the favorite of his uncle King Henry I. Upon Beauclercs death in Normandy, Stephen of Blois seized the English throne, Adela filled in as regent for her husbands duties during his extended absence as a leader of the First Crusade as well as during his second expedition in 1101. This included granting monks the right to build new churches, as well as other charters, while her husband was away, Adela would continue to tour their lands, settling disputes, promoting economic growth, and even commanding knights to go to battle with the king

Adela of Normandy
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Adela of Normandy
Adela of Normandy
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William the Conqueror invades England